The vast majority of users use Wi-Fi wireless networks to connect to the Internet at home, thanks to the versatility of this type of wireless network, we will be able to connect with computers, laptops, mobile phones, tablets or any device that incorporates a card Wifi. However, on many occasions the coverage that we have in our house is not optimal, and the signal does not reach us where we want to connect. Today in this article we are going to explain what the 5 enemies of WiFi at home are and what we should avoid to have better coverage.
These obstacles you must avoid at home
There are many obstacles at home that hardly affect WiFi wireless networks, but there are others that do, and they affect you a lot, the latter are the ones you should avoid at all costs. You should also check how your neighbors affect your home WiFi .
thick doors
Very thick doors are one of the main enemies of WiFi wireless networks, logically if we have doors at home that are too thick, we cannot remove them, but we can keep them open so that the wireless signal passes more easily to other rooms. It is very important in these cases to place the WiFI router or Wi-Fi access point as centrally as possible in the house, to provide coverage to all directions in a more or less homogeneous way, otherwise we cannot reach the other side of the house. house and we will need to use WiFi repeaters, PLC with WiFi or use a WiFi mesh.
If you have very thick doors in your house, then the best thing you can do is leave them open, and if you have the router in one of the corners of the house, then surely the signal will not reach the other side, and you will have to buy equipment additional. These types of doors can attenuate the signal by up to 15dB, that is, it greatly attenuates the WiFi wireless signal.
metal doors
Another enemy of WiFi is metal. If we have metal doors in our house, we have the same problems as thick doors. These types of gates can attenuate the signal by over 11dB, so it attenuates the wireless signal quite a bit. In these cases, the only thing you can do is leave the doors open, and follow the same recommendations as in the previous case.
Today it is quite rare to have metal doors at home, but it is possible that we do have a fire door in our home that are normally metal and with special reinforcement. In these cases we must take into account that it will attenuate the WiFi wireless signal quite a bit.
Concrete or cement walls
Concrete and cement is another of WiFi’s enemies, houses are generally built with these materials, so the signal can be attenuated up to 12dB if we try to pass through rooms that have walls of this type. For this reason, it is very important to place the WiFi router in a central place and away from nearby obstacles, so that we can have a fairly homogeneous coverage at home.
In a house with plasterboard walls we will notice that the WiFi wireless coverage will be clearly better than in concrete, cement or brick walls. Today the vast majority of houses are made of plasterboard to save costs in material and also in personnel, since it takes much less time to install this type of walls than to erect a brick wall.
To give you an idea, the approximate attenuation of a standard concrete or cement wall is about 12dB and a brick wall is about 8dB, however, a plasterboard wall is around 4dB approximately.
crystals and mirrors
The glass of windows or doors, as well as the mirrors that we can have around the house and even in the bathroom, are also one of the enemies of WiFi wireless networks. This type of material attenuates the wireless signal quite a bit, for this reason in bathrooms there is usually not much WiFi coverage, in addition, we must also take into account that we have the walls of the bathroom and the corresponding tiling on the walls, and not only the paint as It happens in the rest of the house.
You will notice the attenuation by the crystals if you have a garden and you just have the WiFi router in the living room, you will quickly verify that the signal received by the WiFi client is clearly lower, and that as soon as we go to the living room the coverage is maximum.
Windows with glass and metal frames
If you have large windows with glass and metal frames, we are using a very bad combination for WiFi wireless network coverage. In most cases we use these windows to access the patio or garden of the house, so if this is your case, you probably have to install an outdoor WiFi access point. There are currently high-end WiFi Mesh systems that have outdoor Mesh nodes, with the aim of having the best possible performance.
As you can see, we have many enemies for WiFi wireless networks, and it is best to avoid them as much as possible, although we understand that in many cases it is not possible due to the materials in the house.
