The router doesn’t belong in the closet: the three most common mistakes that slow down Wi-Fi at home

My best friend works in information technology. Thanks to him, I have a pretty good understanding of how to behave or not behave with certain technologies. I take his advice very well to heart. Because otherwise, he not only laughs at me, but shares my incompetence at work with my colleagues and has a great time about it. Anyway, he taught me that a Wi-Fi router is not just a box that one places anywhere in the home to serve them. It is a device that needs adequate space to operate and also adequate care.

A number of my friends have complained in the past about problems with weak Wi-Fi signals. I have referred some of them straight to my best friend. But for others, thanks to his advice, I was able to tell them what they were doing wrong. Although I myself once listened to lectures for this, today I can pretend to be an expert who knows what he’s doing. And so now I’m happy to pass on the advice to you.

Router placement in the home

Few people realize that a router is a device that can have a problem with some of the appliances you use in your home. Probably its biggest enemy is the microwave oven. “Microwaves don’t just heat food. They flood the surrounding area with high-frequency noise. And Wi-Fi networks weren’t designed to filter it out completely,” explains IT specialist Alan Reyes. While I don’t use a microwave at home, I’ve explained to many friends why their signal is sometimes slower at home.

In a small apartment, you need to put this appliance as far away from the router as possible and count on the fact that when you use the microwave, your Wi-Fi will simply go a little slower for a while. But what I’ve also dealt with are other signal interferers in the home, which can be the refrigerator or dishwasher. Their metal covers reflect radio waves, creating so-called dead zones where the signal is weak or disappears. Again, this is something to keep in mind when placing a router.

The router does not belong in the cabinet

A friend of mine once had a router locked in a closet. Well, to be honest, that was too much even for me, and I’m not very knowledgeable about technology. He argued that he didn’t have the device completely closed, that he just had it in a display case behind glass. But even that is a huge mistake. In addition to the metal, the glass also interferes with the Wi-Fi signal. “Glass seems to be impenetrable to Wi-Fi signals. But modern energy-efficient windows often contain metal oxide coatings that can block or reflect wireless signals. And that’s true for storefronts, too,” say the experts at Compare Internet.

You should also not place the router behind the TV or other electronics, such as DVD players in older apartments or, in more modern cases, behind various consoles. While they don’t directly interfere with the Wi-Fi signal, they can block it.

Aquarium and mirror as another big enemy

What I also didn’t realise before is the fact that the signal from the router can also be blocked by a mirror that is glass, or an aquarium. And in this case, it’s not just that the container with the fish or other aquatic creatures is made of glass. The water itself is also a problem. It absorbs and attenuates electromagnetic waves in the 2.4 GHz band, which Wi-Fi often operates on.

So if you want to boost your Wi-Fi signal as much as possible, it’s important to place your router in an open area, away from devices that interfere with the signal. For the sake of smaller children (or cats, in my experience), it’s a good idea to place it at a good height, such as in a bookcase or open cabinet. One final reason why the signal sometimes fades is the age of the router. You should ideally replace it every two years, as a friend revealed to me some time ago. He was tapping his forehead significantly at the information that I hadn’t thought to buy a new device even after five years.