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发帖数: 2469 | 1 Where To Place Your Router To Get The Absolute Best WiFi Connection
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By Sara Boboltz
We’ve all felt that agonizing moment of WiFi-lessness when the connection
drops out unexpectedly. Turns out, there’s a right and wrong way to set up
a WiFi router, and the wrong way can leave you waiting longer for pages to
load or Netflix to buffer.
Jason Cole, a PhD student in physics at Imperial College London, used math
to figure out the best spot to place a wireless router. Cole solved the
Helmholtz equation — which is used to map electromagnetic fields like the
ones your router emits — for his apartment. What he discovered was that
tucking a router away in an inconspicuous corner is not ideal for a good
connection, even though that’s the way most of us do it.
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Speaking with The Huffington Post, Cole offered a number of tips to help
your WiFi router send a strong signal all over your home or apartment and
reduce the amount of Netflix buffering you have to sit through.
1. Place the router in a central location.
We know the wires you plug into the router are probably set up in the corner
of the room, but it’s better to run them over to a more central spot.
Ideally, it’ll be within sight of wherever you sit and use the Internet
most.
Here’s what your WiFi setup is probably like right now:
In this illustration, the WiFi signals are actually traveling from the
router throughout the entire apartment in about one ten-millionth of a
second. You can see how the signal bounces off walls to fill a room with
delicious Internet. Dead zones, where the signal doesn’t quite reach, are
also visible and become more common further from the source, as walls and
other obstacles absorb more signal energy.
2. Avoid surrounding it with metal objects.
“Metal dissipates electromagnetic energy quite efficiently,” Cole told
HuffPost in an email. So the kitchen is not the best place for your router
to live.
3. Concrete or brick walls are the enemy, too.
“All materials reflect a portion of radiation. Some absorb it quite
strongly, especially concrete,” Cole said. Enclosing the router with
concrete or brick on a couple sides won’t help your signal reach the
furthest corners of your home.
Additionally, floors and ceilings tend to be more transmissive than walls,
Cole noted.
4. Don’t keep the router near a microwave.
If you’ve noticed the Internet slowing down whenever you’re heating
something up in the microwave, it’s not just you. Microwaves operate around
the same frequency as wireless routers, and even the tiny bit of radiation
that escapes the microwave can disrupt your signal.
5. Set it up high.
WiFi routers emit radio waves, which spread out and down from their source.
Mounting the router to a wall or setting it on a high shelf can give you a
better signal, especially if you live in a two-story house and want a good
connection on both floors.
6. Position the antenna upward for a better horizontal reach, or sideways
for vertical reach.
In a multi-story home, positioning a router’s antenna sideways can help you
get a better signal upstairs. Pointing an antenna up helps the router reach
farther laterally.
If your router has two antennas, though, take care of all possibilities by
pointing one antenna up and the other to the side. And if you’ve got a
router without any antennas, make sure you stand it the way it’s made to go
. That is, don’t lay a vertical router on its side.
7. Think twice about putting a router somewhere with a lot of people.
Water inhibits WiFi signals. Since humans are mostly water, a bunch of us
hanging out in a room together can interfere with the signal. You may have
noticed getting worse Internet connections in crowded spaces. And yes, you
probably want a good WiFi signal in the room where people like to gather,
but all those bodies might slow it down in other parts of the house.
BONUS: Use Cole’s app, which lets you visualize the WiFi connection in your
own house.
If you’re so inclined, Cole created an app for Android phones that lets you
upload a floorplan to see how electromagnetic waves propagate throughout
your own home. (Some math required. Sorry.)
HuffPost
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