I think we can all agree that there is absolutely nothing worse than having the season finale of your favorite show stop because Netflix has to buffer. Seriously. There's got to be a circle of Hell reserved for that sort of thing.
Here's the problem: your WiFi connection isn't as strong as it should be. For some people, they know the sweet spot in their house where they can access their WiFi without delay, so that's where they veg out. Others might have to get a bit craftier by standing or sitting near a window.
The thing is, it's all about router placement. When you move in and set up your WiFi, you're just so excited to have it back in your life that you don't take the time to carefully consider where you should place your router. As you will soon learn, this is crucial and will determine whether or not you have a happy life in that home.
For the sake of all humanity, someone has actually taken it upon himself to find out where in your home is actually the best place to put your router. Jason Cole, who is studying to get his PhD in physics at Imperial College London, wrote that he once tried to figure out how to get the most out of his WiFi in his flat in a post on his blog. Using what is known as the Helmholtz Equation, Cole gave the walls refraction values and created electromagnetic intensity maps based on the location of his WiFi antenna.
There's a ton of math-speak in the blog post if that's your jam, but for those who aren't so numerically inclined, here's what Cole found. Surprise, surprise. The best place in his flat for the router was smackdab in the middle, allowing more equally distributed access to the WiFi signal.
However, Cole recognized that "this is probably not a viable option," so with the help of a commenter, he allowed for absorption in the concrete and stopped "the perfect reflections forming a standing wave which almost perfectly cancels everything out," he wrote. Cole even provided a nifty GIF that gives a better illustration of WiFi signals. If you're stoked to try this out yourself, Cole has developed an Android app where users can simulate how the electromagnetic waves will flow out from a WIFi router on a floorplan of their house, just like he did in this experiment.
As you can see, the further away you are from your router, the weaker the WiFi signal will be. So simple yet so elusive.
