Have you been working from home lately? Or do have your children learning from home? If so, I bet you’ve noticed how bad your home’s WiFi network can be. A poor performing home network can be extremely frustrating. Freezing or blurry videos, spotty audio over Zoom, and stuck browser searches are incredibly annoying and only get worse with more people on the network. It makes you far less productive too when you’re trying to work or learn.
So let’s get to fixing your network.
Make sure your internet speed is fast enough to handle your max load
If you know nothing about internet speed, get familiar with the basics to do some addition to calculate your total load. Internet speed is measured in Mbps which is short for Megabits per second, not to be confused with Megabytes per second. The internet plan I pay for costs about $70 per month from Spectrum where my download speed is 300Mbps. I have a family of three and that is more than enough speed to the house to handle our needs. You can do some simple calculations on what you’re doing in your home at any given time by using the numbers below.
- Streaming HD video – 25+ Mbps per device
- Browsing the web and checking email – up to 3Mbps per device
- Downloading or streaming music – Up to 18Mbps per device
As you can see by the main tasks listed above, 300Mbps is more than enough speed to cover three streaming devices at the same time. Keep in mind though, 300Mbps is the maximum speed that can used at one time if the network is performing up to par. If the whole neighborhood is actively using the internet, it may slow that speed across the entire area. If your plan is less than 25Mbps, you should consider looking for an alternative that’s faster. Depending on your financial situation or age, you may be able to ask for discounts as well.
If you have a large family with minimal speeds, and you can’t increase your speed, then ask others to stay off the internet for important work or school work until it’s completed.
Place your router in an ideal location
I get it – routers are ugly and have lots of wires. You might think hiding it in a TV cabinet or bookshelf makes your home look better, but you’re not doing yourselves any favors here. Any wireless signal is degraded with physical objects in its way. Think of sound waves from speakers – would you put your speaker inside of a cabinet to get the best sound? Do you think your speaker would sound good to you two rooms away? Internet bandwidth behaves the same, and the more stuff you have between you and the router will degrade your overall performance.
The fastest location in your home is closest to the router. The further you go the more your signal degrades. There’s multiple solutions for this, but the first is free.
Take your router out of any cabinet and place it as free and clear from shelves and walls as possible. Try to center it in your home. Keep it away from appliances like TVs, microwaves, or anything else with a lot of metal that can deflect the signal. Lastly, the higher the placement the better.
Reset your router and call your provider
Another common sense repair is to reset your router. It used to be more commonplace for us to naturally think to reset our devices, but with increased reliability over the years we sometimes forget the most obvious thing to do. Powering down your router and unplugging it from the wall will help clear out any cache buildup and will reset all of your connections. It’s a pain to do, but it’s free.
Sometimes the problem isn’t always yours. It’s common for providers to have faulty equipment and they might need to reset their end of the connection as well. So give them a call and ask for support. You may even have a faulty provided router that needs replacing which they can diagnose remotely. If it happens to be a big enough problem, you might be able to swing a discount on your service if you ask for it.
Replace your router
Think of a wireless router as any other appliance in your home. It won’t last forever. If your router is old, like five years or older, it might be time for an upgrade. Technology evolves rapidly and there’s more and more devices connected in your home these days. Cameras, doorbells, sprinkler systems, smart speakers, smart TVs, tablets, phones, computers, and even smart appliances can overload an old router quickly. One of my favorite routers is made by Netgear – the Nighthawk AC1900 which covers 1800 square feet. Remember, 1800 square feet is the maximum amount of coverage, so if i’s not in the center of your home and off in a corner, your coverage may actually be outside of your home for part of it.
Upgrade to a mesh network
I upgraded to a mesh network and have never looked back. I also never have connection issues anymore and wholeheartedly recommend this solution to anyone and everyone. It’s going to be a decent investment to upgrade your network, but if you need stability and performance, there’s no better way to go than a mesh network.
“A mesh network is a group of devices that act as a single Wi-Fi network; so there are multiple sources of Wi-Fi around your house, instead of just a single router.” – Google
If you have a group of access points and one goes down, all of the internet traffic is routed to the closest network point that is still active. On the counter, if you run everything through one router in a traditional setup, if it goes down then you’re out of luck across the whole home. Another nice feature of almost all mesh networks is they auto-update themselves to have the latest software and firmware to keep you safe from intruders.
These days there are dozens of options for network mesh solutions to go with, but I’ll list a few different ones depending on your needs. One pro tip – never buy a mesh network at list price. They always go on sale at some point. This can be said for almost all electronics, but it’s always true for networking hardware.
My favorite mesh network – GOOGLE NEST WIFI
The Google Nest WiFi is the mesh network I use in my home. It’s incredibly easy to install once you download the accompanying app. You follow a step-by-step guide and within 10 minutes, you’re up and running. You can add as many mesh points as you need in your home (Google recommends no more than five mesh points per network.), but I generally aim on the over coverage side. My home is roughly 2000 square feet, so I aim to have my mesh work cover at least 4000 square feet. Since my home is two levels, I also make sure to have at least one mesh network point per floor. You can always start small and add mesh points as you need them.
Nest WiFi is nice because you can prioritize which devices have access to the most speed, you can shut down individual connections (think children at night), you can create rules for certain users, and lastly, you can also create a guest network for visitors. While almost all networks have these features, Google’s is very user friendly and there’s lots of support for its products online. One last feature that is unique to Nest WiFi is each access point has the Google assistant built into it for voice control. It’s very useful for setting alarms, asking what time it is, turning on/off smart lights, and playing music.
Best mesh network for large homes or homes with thick walls – AMPLIFI HD
My parents have a large three-story home that was built in the late 1800s. It has very thick walls made from lathe and plaster and solid wood doors which are a WiFi killer. They also have a huge backyard where my dad loves to stream music over WiFi while he’s mowing the lawn.
The best mesh network I have had success with in their house is the Amplifi HD mesh network by Ubiquiti Labs. It has a main point with a color display for setup and two powerful antennae that plug into power receptacles. The mesh antennae are nice because they don’t need to sit atop a table, instead they just hang out of the wall socket. This mesh networking system is great for large homes and for those with thick walls and furniture. This three part mesh network is designed to cover homes up to 10,000 square feet.
Most affordable mesh network – EERO
The first company to come out with a well-performing mesh network was Eero. I reviewed its first system and was highly impressed with it. It was easy to use, simple to set up, always worked, and even looked nice. It was a pricey system at $500 but was well worth the money at the time.
Amazon acquired Eero a couple of years ago and pushed out the next generation platform which now only costs $199 with a free Amazon Dot included. Performance wise, while always being stable, I have found the Eero to be the slowest of the bunch. With that being said, it shouldn’t matter to most homes – only those with heavy gamers who push the needs of the WiFi network to the max. The three piece Eero system is more affordable at $199 and is enough to cover 5000 square feet.
To summarize, try the easiest and free fixes first. The solutions are easy to try and might solve your problems. However, if you can afford it, I can’t recommend a mesh network enough. You’ll be extremely satisfied with the stability and speed of your network that you might decide to always work from home.
Stay safe. Stay healthy.