Competitive online games, especially First Person Shooters like Overwatch and Call of Duty. What's the science behind gamers reaction times, accuracy and insane spatial awareness inside a virtual world? Does the brain process the information from this digital world differently? What parts of the brain are responsible for being good at videogames?
The 1500 plus studies showing the deleterious effects of EMF might be a good place to start? Maybe the centre of her bed is the best place for her to sleep. :) Can't be asked? Non ionising radiation perfectly safe? It's OK, these actual scientists have that covered. mdsafetech.org/
@@enckil There is silly money in telecommunications. Wherever silly money is available to corporations, they protect their financial interests. We just don't matter to them.
very wise, thats also better for your health and wifi in your bedroom even worse. I have a long enough cable that runs neatly along the walls. Always a faster and more consistent connection.
@@tbhinteractieve I mean like in my case I can't do that cuz it's fiber optics and that uses a media converter which is inputed by the fiber cable So you can't really change the postion of the wifi Ps. My walls are made of concrete lmao
Well as an telecommunication engineering student, i'd say, depends on your apartment layout tho, but worth to try because remember that modern ONT's antenna radiate the signal to all directions. So just try to imagine where to put your lamp (since they radiate in a same way)
Yes it will help massively. Instead of a lightbulb in the centre of your living room. Use a router trust me now your signal will go 360° instead of next to a wall to lose 180° of wifi through the wall. Why to u think most business put a wifi signal in the centre of the hallway.
Not everything is signal strength. You're also greatly influenced by the noise coming from competing routers nearby. Picture yourself in a bar having a conversation with a friend. If you move around the bar you'll hear your friend better or worse, but it can change with the amount of things around you AND if there are other people talking, and how loud.
Indeed. They didn't talk about solutions to poor reception either, I was looking forward to that. Running an ethernet cable isn't always possible or practical.
Yes! I was thinking the same thing. Got a bit annoyed that they didn't do a comparison. Sure, the 3D overlay was cool and all... but simulation vs. observation would have been the highlight of the video.
So let me get this straight .. They measured stuff and did nothing with it to help with the wifi signal ... Bruh i feel like i wasted time on this vid :/
I think this was just an attempt to show off the science. I mean it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if you put your wifi router on one side of your home, the signal is going to be worse through multiple walls on the other side of the home. Either put it in the middle if possible, or use Nest/Eero mesh wifi, or use some type of PowerLine ethernet (basically it plug into your wall outlet and you have ethernet going in/out).
Moca networking is often better than mesh or ethernet over power lines. If you have coax connections, it's definitely worth looking into, either moca wifi extenders or directly to an ethernet cable
Also, I checked the app and, although useful, it's very basic. It doesn't let you choose between 2.4 and 5GHz, which can spread very differently through the same environment.
For a place that small it wouldn't be worth the cost. A better DNS service, better standalone router, or simply move the router. It would've been nice for them to have some kind of resolution to the video instead of going "yep already knew wifi was bad there". For the guy in the video, hardwire is the only way to go for the large video file sizes editors deal with.
@@SerpentDrago I agree, but sometimes it's just the transfer speeds. I had an issue that was resolved with switching to Google's DNS service. There are other ones, but I prefer theirs. I've done this with fiber and cable based service always with an increase in responsiveness. You could try another broadcast channel too. It's always cheaper to try a settings adjustment than getting new hardware.
@@shryx86 - I put in an EERO mesh, and it made all the difference in the world. Depends, I suppose, on the wall construction. Ours is all concrete, and our TV could not pick up reliable signal most of the time. Our MagicJack would also drop out if you walked a few feet while talking. Putting the EERO in solved all that, and we now have solid signal throughout the 4 bedroom apartment.
I have been using a wifi powerline whit my clients trust me before u start complaining. 2020 powerlines can reach speeds of 400mbps fast enough for 80% of USA internet speeds. And its stil better than wifi
@@julianmurillo4678 Is there a way to connect an ethernet cable to devices like the iPad, PS4/5, Nintendo Switch, and ultrathin laptops? I don't have them, but just wondering...
Did not check router wifi settings to understand channels and channel width settings configured there and didn't check wifi channels congestion??? I mean yea it's plug and play, but not going to be optimal that way. Manual wifi settings + range/speed tests are the way to go.
This is a science channel... too many vairables. I once thought I was having wifi issues... turned out I was over heating my speakers with too much voltage.
I perform heat mapping and WIFI troubleshooting as my day job for an ISP. The very FIRST thing they should have done was look for other EM interference. There are several phone apps that show a "radar" GUI of all the 2.4ghz and 5ghz signals overlapping one another. If shes in an apartment then her router is competing for air space from all the neighbors. The solution is to either move the router to a more centralized location, or to get one with stronger output (essentially a louder output to drown out the neigbors routers). Or also depending on how much interference there is she could use a repeater or a separate wireless AP (access point) to get a strong signal in other rooms.
For a techie she really thought having a router behind her TV not in the middle of her apparement really thinking if she deserves the tech savvy card 🙄😂
I did the wifi surveys for Yankee Stadium using Ekahau. It's a huge job, and lots of things interact with the signal quality. Noise from other access points was the biggest problem!
Trust TH-cam to have a answer for ANY problem! I have been going down this path of trying to fix Wifi Coverage issue and was going down a very similar path as shown in this video. I had tried powerline extenders (not that great), finally upgraded to 1 GB fiber ISP which meant the extenders cannot support those speeds. I finally decided to add another router (placed in my bedroom) to my existing one (dining room, both ASUS AC models) , hooked them up using ASUS's AiMESH feature with a good old Cat 6 cable. Now, I am happy. Getting 400+ Mbps in my bedroom and I am smiling. P.S. I have been around when 9.6Kbps was THE thing to have (remember the modem handshake tone?) so unbelievable that we have come this far in about 25 years.
The internet is a super dynamic system with servers, switching stations, fiber lines under the oceans, etc. You might as well pick points with schrodinger's equation than "map" your wifi. This was an exercise in futility.
Have been working from home for the last 5 months. My Wi-Fi signal bothered me a lot. Bought a new router with 5 antennas and an extender but it didn't help much. Finally migrated to mesh Wi-Fi and have been never been happier. Signal is strong in every part of the house and I stream 4K and get into video calls with Zero reduction in quality. So, go mesh!!!
Or find a better place for the router, check the DNS settings, and make sure the router's firmware is up to date. You can also change the channel it broadcasts on for a better signal. Unfortunately, if you have a large house, brick walls, etc there's not much you can do and mesh wifi would be the only solution.
@@shryx86 In fact, I did find a better place using Wi-FiSweetSpots app. But in order to place the router in that location, the LAN cable had to travel half of my home, on the floor. Ducting did not make sense in terms of price and effort. I did try moving to Cloudflare DNS and installing a PiHole system for better bandwidth management, but I was not happy. So again, go mesh! :-)
Ekahau heatmapper. Used it for years for locating WiFi hotspots in office buildings. Walk around the building clicking as you walk around your floorplan and it's done.
When we moved into our 4-bedroom house I planned to put my router near the middle of the main floor. But at first I put it in the basement because there was a cable outlet there. And it worked fine throughout the whole house through multiple walls and floors, even the bedrooms at the corners of the second story. Over the past 20 years we've been through many routers but they've all covered the entire house just fine from that spot in the basement. It's sad that a single-floor apartment would have any issues. That first "router" was an Apple Airport flying-saucer base station that used a Lucent pcmcia card for wifi. Not much by today's standards.
Forget using the app the simulate your apartments wifi dead zones, use it to find an optimal router location!, Then invest in lots of extension cables and a router wall mount
A very good starting point if you have bad wi-fi at home. I would say that physically mapping in that way wouldn't help much, but at least gives the perspective of how the wi-fi works. Here is the solution: make the map in the first app. Check accuracy with a speed test in a couple of locations (low and high signal). If you are happy with the accuracy you can proceed with simulating the router in different locations. After you found the perfect spot, get long enough cable and take the router there. Again check the accuracy of the map using speed test. If you are happy with the results you would just need to figure out if you would install extension socket or hide the cable somehow. There you go the wi-fi is fixed. Some tips from me: avoid glass, metal and electrical devices near the router; Don't put the router on the floor or on the window cell; If you have glass doors opening the door does miracles. In some cases, the problem is not from the location of the router but interference from other wi-fi networks. In such cases, there is another fix available. You need to go to your router's settings page. Usually, the address is either 192.168.0.0 or 192.168.0.1. This is noted on the back/bottom of most routers and also the login details for the page. This excludes most providers routers, so you might need to call them for the login details. Once you are in that page you would be looking for something that would say wireless/ wi-fi or wireless settings. Under the wireless network settings there would be something saying desired channel/channel with numbers from 1 to 13 as options. Select any number and apply. Test if it doesn't work try another and so on. Easier way is to check the surrounding networks using CMD with command - netsh wlan show networks bssid. Once you have the surrounding network's channels you can select one that's not around you. Hope this helps :)
Reminds me of a location where there was one exact spot that would have zero WiFi signal. Big open space and the access point on a desk, I can move left or right and have full signal except just there.
“I didn’t think the simulation would do such a great job” Guy : so I want you to manually map it out instead “You know I think the simulation did a great job”
0:15 well first thing I´d say, it would be beneficial to place IoT devices like Philips hue home station a little bit further away from your router. And maybe not place it behind something like your TV
This helps so much!!!! Life saviour for me to send to my parents, aunt, uncles since they keep messaging about "fixing the wifi! You're the tech person🤓😂"
For everyone struggling with wifi look up "powerline switches" these devices akin to running an ethernet cable (minus the long trip wire-like cable) throughout your house except it uses your houses electrical grid to pass signals and data from your router to your internet-connected device and visa versa. I have one and it works wonders for all the devices in my room on the 3rd floor. My router is in my basement, in my room, I have a gaming console, various computers
I think this would be a great thing to add to a roomba or some walking (hexapod) or flying drone. Although I love the kick it old school with paper and pencil I can totally see strapping a phone to the roomba and having it automatically take the measurement at each 2 feet. Although really a hexabod walking around would just be cool!
You can do this with AR on a pretty much any smartphone with a TOF sensor, or just optical machine learning in pretty much any recent smartphone. VR systems do this to map out play areas too. Roombas use optical tracking and machine learning to map the room they are in already too, but it's internal data that is used for memory applications to make efficiently changes to it's pattern and scaling.
So not many know that any antenna has directional radiation / sensitivity diagram which affects signal strength much more than attenuation across few ft ? And with the wavelength of just few inches, 2.4GHz signal will create such interference picture which is impossible to simulate unless the whole apartment is mapped with fraction of an inch accuracy and exact material properties.
Love how they overlook what should have been the obvious solution before all the testing; move the router away from the brick corner into a more central, open area of the apartment. My own solution is to have the slowest internet plan available, so I can't differentiate any potential WiFi bottleneck compared to my normal wired connection quality.
How to improve WiFi. 1. Can you use a cable? Then use a Ethernet cable. 2. Place the router in the center of the space and up high. 3. Try 5 GHz, because 2.4GHz might be crowded. 4. Check router setting to prioritize devices. 5. Seriously just use a cable.
"And I’ll never get that time back" ... and I feel the same way for watching this video.. Seriously. A tech site that doesn't already know to at least try to centralize the router within the home space? Even just moving it over a couple feet to be at the end of that little wall blocking signal would help a good amount.
I'd be really interested in doing something like this myself. The only things I'm curious about are the program that you used to simulate a router (don't know if the name is mentioned, I may have missed it) and how you got the floor plan of the signal overlaid on pictures of the living room/kitchen/bedroom.
1. Get a better router. ISP routers are almost always cheap junk. Make sure it has removable antennas. 2. Get directional antennas. I use a Hawking corner-mount model HAI15SC. No booster needed; it runs on the router's native power. It pushes signal through all the walls of my 4 bedroom house and outside into the street. My neighbours could have great Wi-Fi if they knew the password, lol. Seriously, this video was informative, but it's purely academic. Even some basic Wi-Fi hacks to improve the signal (like not locating the router behind the damn tv) would add content to an otherwise bland eight minutes.
How I dealt with a similar problems from Spectrum wifi with a Spectrum (Sagemcom) router: -Ethernet cables to all computer and game consoles -Wifi for phones and the Switch Now if Spectrum's service would stop randomly getting throttled or cut out we would have a bulletproof setup
that was interesting and something that i always suspected hence the reason why i use a cable for my main set-ups mainly for speed & reliability, what's not in my control is when a neighbour has joined the same provider as me and the main junction outside the house has to be shared and the service provider doesn't increase the wavelength so the same amount of power shall we say is expected to provide for 2 or 4 more new connections so i have to communicate with them and go through all the "have you checked your cables" speech nonsense for them to admit that the signal has dropped significantly and then to wait for them to come out and goto the exchange box to higher the output so that we go back to getting a decent signal again, why don't the service providers just increase the wavelength or use fatter cables or better still use fibre optics to increase data carrying whenever a new connection is established instead of cutting corners to save money exspecially when i pay for the higher top speed connections and should never have or see a drop in our speeds, i do want my own underground connection but they won't do it even though eventually this will be done to all instead of a silly wire dangling from a communication pole outside in the street that is subject to all sorts of interference from everything.
How can you say that the simulation was spot on if you didn’t even overlay The simulation with the measurements? It would’ve been really interesting to see if some of the interference patterns could explain some of the pockets of bad signal. It seems to me that she did not take care of her own orientation probably shielding the signal with her body and some places and not in others.
I am the developer of Oka Speed Test iOS app. I was shocked in the past two days because of the sudden increase in downloads of this app. I didn't know what happened until I found out here. After watching this awesome video, I feel that it is time to add an AR mode to this app. It may not be useful, but it must be cool. LOL
@@k091-d9i The ARKit provided by Apple makes implementing AR functionality much easier than it used to be. But this will be my first attempt at developing an AR app. I'll have to take some time to design it properly and pray there are no bugs.
You all need some good gear from UI.com Multiple access points and band steering capable access points are the solution to good wifi as well as making sure everything that can be Ethernet wired, is, so there's more airtime for the wifi connected devices that need to be wifi connected.
And this is why all my computers are in the same room as the modem - so the ethernet cable can be routed next to the walls and it's not nearly as unsightly.
Why in the world did you consider 40dbm as a solid result? Best experience is at 85-95 dbm in terms of signal strength for current generation of WiFi (ac/ax)
Can you make a new 3D map of the apartment that shows the difference between the model and the actual readings? Where is the model most accurate and where is it least accurate?
This is one of the reasons I am a big proponent of "wired networking" whenever possible my devices receive an honest to goodness CAT 6e Ethernet Cable. I also try to group devices on the same switch so all my equipment related to the TV are run on one Gigabit Switch with an uplink to the router, my servers on another switch with a dedicated uplink to the router, ham radios dedicated switch, etc... I am also beginning the process of upgrading my routers (I now have 5 static IPs) so that I can dedicate home automation Wi-Fi on one VLAN that is completely separate from my other equipment. I am amazed at how much communication these devices have constantly, which is causing performance issues on my network particularly with DNS. The other thing that many people need to look at in addition to router placement is separate Wi-Fi Access Points with an Ethernet Cable connecting them to the router or switch. Also, turning the power down and not running maximum will improve speed too by reducing the bouncing of signals. You don't need your Wi-Fi being available to a home 10 doors down.
Oops, they forgot that the human body affects the Wi-Fi signal and she carries the phone around with her as she is measuring. Best to leave the Phone about 3 feet off the floor and step well away from the phone.
Your discription and test left out some detail. The power levels alone are not enough, infact the power levels were pretty decent in the test. Its all about signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR). Since wifi uses unlicensed /open spectrum, signal from your neighbors wifi router will interfere with your signal and bring down your throughput. Thats why you may get different throughput throughout the day despite your routers coverage not changing much. if your neighbors router is transmitting data it will cause more interference
What other tech should we look at from a science perspective?
Competitive online games, especially First Person Shooters like Overwatch and Call of Duty. What's the science behind gamers reaction times, accuracy and insane spatial awareness inside a virtual world?
Does the brain process the information from this digital world differently? What parts of the brain are responsible for being good at videogames?
The 1500 plus studies showing the deleterious effects of EMF might be a good place to start?
Maybe the centre of her bed is the best place for her to sleep. :)
Can't be asked? Non ionising radiation perfectly safe? It's OK, these actual scientists have that covered.
mdsafetech.org/
Mesh Network vs Access Points with CAT 6e home runs.
A huge cause of lag/latency is bufferbloat. SQM fixes this. Most consumer routers do not have SQM.
@@enckil There is silly money in telecommunications. Wherever silly money is available to corporations, they protect their financial interests. We just don't matter to them.
I love that the final solution was:
"I just run an ethernet cable"
Lol 😂😂😂
Same. But smartly enough, I installed another Wifi router on the other end.
Mesh networking ftw. Or you know move the router out from behind the brick
Bruh spoiler
You can do a mesh network, you can also do ethernet over power outlet
very wise, thats also better for your health and wifi in your bedroom even worse.
I have a long enough cable that runs neatly along the walls. Always a faster and more consistent connection.
My neighbours WiFi is bad.... I've even stopped giving their password out
Lol🤣
LOL. Man makes me wonder...
How about a follow up: Does moving the wifi router to a center point in the apartment fix the issue?
this!!
Spoiler: it actually does solve a big part of the issue
@@tbhinteractieve I mean like in my case I can't do that cuz it's fiber optics and that uses a media converter which is inputed by the fiber cable
So you can't really change the postion of the wifi
Ps. My walls are made of concrete lmao
Well as an telecommunication engineering student, i'd say, depends on your apartment layout tho, but worth to try because remember that modern ONT's antenna radiate the signal to all directions. So just try to imagine where to put your lamp (since they radiate in a same way)
Yes it will help massively. Instead of a lightbulb in the centre of your living room. Use a router trust me now your signal will go 360° instead of next to a wall to lose 180° of wifi through the wall.
Why to u think most business put a wifi signal in the centre of the hallway.
Not everything is signal strength. You're also greatly influenced by the noise coming from competing routers nearby.
Picture yourself in a bar having a conversation with a friend. If you move around the bar you'll hear your friend better or worse, but it can change with the amount of things around you AND if there are other people talking, and how loud.
@@OwlBlancx No, that's BS. Completely different radio bandwidth.
Why no heatmap/ simulation comparisons?? Pretty lukewarm as far as a "science" episode goes.
Yeah seriously. They spent this effort on rendering the map in 3D space when it would've just been more useful to just compare the darn maps
Indeed. They didn't talk about solutions to poor reception either, I was looking forward to that. Running an ethernet cable isn't always possible or practical.
@@itsJPhere just buy routers with repeaters
Seriously buy a mesh
Yes! I was thinking the same thing. Got a bit annoyed that they didn't do a comparison. Sure, the 3D overlay was cool and all... but simulation vs. observation would have been the highlight of the video.
So let me get this straight .. They measured stuff and did nothing with it to help with the wifi signal ...
Bruh i feel like i wasted time on this vid :/
Deathwarrior Yeah, I loved the video... But I did miss the, let’s add this little gadget here to improve WiFi everywhere.
I think this was just an attempt to show off the science. I mean it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if you put your wifi router on one side of your home, the signal is going to be worse through multiple walls on the other side of the home. Either put it in the middle if possible, or use Nest/Eero mesh wifi, or use some type of PowerLine ethernet (basically it plug into your wall outlet and you have ethernet going in/out).
Moca networking is often better than mesh or ethernet over power lines. If you have coax connections, it's definitely worth looking into, either moca wifi extenders or directly to an ethernet cable
Thanks . therefore I don't watch this video
Also, I checked the app and, although useful, it's very basic. It doesn't let you choose between 2.4 and 5GHz, which can spread very differently through the same environment.
This is also what they do for whole cities, when setting up cell towers. Not only in 2D but also in 3D maps
we also do this for clients when designing wireless networks for their facilities.. skyscrapers, industrial plants, etc.. there is huge money in it.
I would like to see a video about that.
Finding the software to do this is insane hard
@@06howea1 That's becasue it's custom built by software and network engineers. It's actually the industry I work in as a network technician.
Y'all never heard of mesh wifi?
For a place that small it wouldn't be worth the cost. A better DNS service, better standalone router, or simply move the router. It would've been nice for them to have some kind of resolution to the video instead of going "yep already knew wifi was bad there". For the guy in the video, hardwire is the only way to go for the large video file sizes editors deal with.
@@shryx86 dns has nothing to do with wifi signal.
@@SerpentDrago I agree, but sometimes it's just the transfer speeds. I had an issue that was resolved with switching to Google's DNS service. There are other ones, but I prefer theirs. I've done this with fiber and cable based service always with an increase in responsiveness. You could try another broadcast channel too. It's always cheaper to try a settings adjustment than getting new hardware.
@@shryx86 - I put in an EERO mesh, and it made all the difference in the world. Depends, I suppose, on the wall construction. Ours is all concrete, and our TV could not pick up reliable signal most of the time. Our MagicJack would also drop out if you walked a few feet while talking. Putting the EERO in solved all that, and we now have solid signal throughout the 4 bedroom apartment.
I have been using a wifi powerline whit my clients trust me before u start complaining. 2020 powerlines can reach speeds of 400mbps fast enough for 80% of USA internet speeds. And its stil better than wifi
0 - 7:52 - Science
7:52 - end: Engineering
New tenant: Is there something else I should know about the apartment?
Becca: Yeah, don’t lay in the middle of the bed.
Wait, what did I learn from this video? 😵
Get a mesh network.
that Ethernet is the best
use an unsightly cable lol
@@julianmurillo4678 Is there a way to connect an ethernet cable to devices like the iPad, PS4/5, Nintendo Switch, and ultrathin laptops? I don't have them, but just wondering...
@@MalaysianTropikfusion You can get a Ethernet to lighting adapter and to mini Ethernet. The PS4 has a dedicated Ethernet port
I forgot exactly which model but a Roomba can make the wifi map of your house or room.
I own Roomba 980 and it can make a WiFi map but only for 2.4Ghz and not 5Ghz band.
so lets improve the wifi by moving the router. lmao nah bruv you like blue 3d squares instead?
But cable management 😬..
That felt like half a video - where they diagnosed the issue but completely disregarded the solution.
Having WiFi problems: The Verge: measures everything in the apartment and runs simulations. Me: Presses restart button on the router
Heh, it’s worth the wait eh?
Did not check router wifi settings to understand channels and channel width settings configured there and didn't check wifi channels congestion??? I mean yea it's plug and play, but not going to be optimal that way. Manual wifi settings + range/speed tests are the way to go.
Exactly. Avoiding the default channels is really important especially in apartments.
This is a science channel... too many vairables. I once thought I was having wifi issues... turned out I was over heating my speakers with too much voltage.
I perform heat mapping and WIFI troubleshooting as my day job for an ISP. The very FIRST thing they should have done was look for other EM interference. There are several phone apps that show a "radar" GUI of all the 2.4ghz and 5ghz signals overlapping one another. If shes in an apartment then her router is competing for air space from all the neighbors. The solution is to either move the router to a more centralized location, or to get one with stronger output (essentially a louder output to drown out the neigbors routers). Or also depending on how much interference there is she could use a repeater or a separate wireless AP (access point) to get a strong signal in other rooms.
Verge Science: Complains about poor wifi signals
Me and everyone in the Philippines: First time?
Americans: We've been doing this for a while
When you get a bad signal...sit near the router ..or take your router and plug it near an opening..
Science is when you do pretty graphics, right?
For a techie she really thought having a router behind her TV not in the middle of her apparement really thinking if she deserves the tech savvy card 🙄😂
I did the wifi surveys for Yankee Stadium using Ekahau. It's a huge job, and lots of things interact with the signal quality. Noise from other access points was the biggest problem!
This reminds me of when I made an elevation map of my backyard using a laser level and a tape measure.
Trust TH-cam to have a answer for ANY problem! I have been going down this path of trying to fix Wifi Coverage issue and was going down a very similar path as shown in this video. I had tried powerline extenders (not that great), finally upgraded to 1 GB fiber ISP which meant the extenders cannot support those speeds. I finally decided to add another router (placed in my bedroom) to my existing one (dining room, both ASUS AC models) , hooked them up using ASUS's AiMESH feature with a good old Cat 6 cable. Now, I am happy. Getting 400+ Mbps in my bedroom and I am smiling. P.S. I have been around when 9.6Kbps was THE thing to have (remember the modem handshake tone?) so unbelievable that we have come this far in about 25 years.
The internet is a super dynamic system with servers, switching stations, fiber lines under the oceans, etc. You might as well pick points with schrodinger's equation than "map" your wifi. This was an exercise in futility.
Tech person doesn't understand WiFi, enough said.
It kinda depends in what you specialize
But he's got a microscope on his kitchen table! He must be a scientist!
Have been working from home for the last 5 months. My Wi-Fi signal bothered me a lot. Bought a new router with 5 antennas and an extender but it didn't help much. Finally migrated to mesh Wi-Fi and have been never been happier. Signal is strong in every part of the house and I stream 4K and get into video calls with Zero reduction in quality. So, go mesh!!!
Or find a better place for the router, check the DNS settings, and make sure the router's firmware is up to date. You can also change the channel it broadcasts on for a better signal. Unfortunately, if you have a large house, brick walls, etc there's not much you can do and mesh wifi would be the only solution.
@@shryx86 In fact, I did find a better place using Wi-FiSweetSpots app. But in order to place the router in that location, the LAN cable had to travel half of my home, on the floor. Ducting did not make sense in terms of price and effort. I did try moving to Cloudflare DNS and installing a PiHole system for better bandwidth management, but I was not happy. So again, go mesh! :-)
Ekahau heatmapper. Used it for years for locating WiFi hotspots in office buildings. Walk around the building clicking as you walk around your floorplan and it's done.
I'm not surprised that Verge's tech people don't know where to properly put a wifi router.
"Tech Nerd" and can't even figure out why she has bad Wi-Fi connection
& I was waiting the whole video for a suggested solution..
When we moved into our 4-bedroom house I planned to put my router near the middle of the main floor. But at first I put it in the basement because there was a cable outlet there. And it worked fine throughout the whole house through multiple walls and floors, even the bedrooms at the corners of the second story. Over the past 20 years we've been through many routers but they've all covered the entire house just fine from that spot in the basement. It's sad that a single-floor apartment would have any issues. That first "router" was an Apple Airport flying-saucer base station that used a Lucent pcmcia card for wifi. Not much by today's standards.
Forget using the app the simulate your apartments wifi dead zones, use it to find an optimal router location!,
Then invest in lots of extension cables and a router wall mount
A very good starting point if you have bad wi-fi at home. I would say that physically mapping in that way wouldn't help much, but at least gives the perspective of how the wi-fi works. Here is the solution: make the map in the first app. Check accuracy with a speed test in a couple of locations (low and high signal). If you are happy with the accuracy you can proceed with simulating the router in different locations. After you found the perfect spot, get long enough cable and take the router there. Again check the accuracy of the map using speed test. If you are happy with the results you would just need to figure out if you would install extension socket or hide the cable somehow. There you go the wi-fi is fixed. Some tips from me: avoid glass, metal and electrical devices near the router; Don't put the router on the floor or on the window cell; If you have glass doors opening the door does miracles. In some cases, the problem is not from the location of the router but interference from other wi-fi networks. In such cases, there is another fix available. You need to go to your router's settings page. Usually, the address is either 192.168.0.0 or 192.168.0.1. This is noted on the back/bottom of most routers and also the login details for the page. This excludes most providers routers, so you might need to call them for the login details. Once you are in that page you would be looking for something that would say wireless/ wi-fi or wireless settings. Under the wireless network settings there would be something saying desired channel/channel with numbers from 1 to 13 as options. Select any number and apply. Test if it doesn't work try another and so on. Easier way is to check the surrounding networks using CMD with command - netsh wlan show networks bssid. Once you have the surrounding network's channels you can select one that's not around you. Hope this helps :)
Try WifiAR this app does the some stuff you did just in seconds 😂
It's amusing that they used an Android app for the simulation then they link to an iOS speed test app.
Be sure to install "WiFi AR - most useful tool ever", there is another "WiFi AR - open wifi seeker" also.
Reminds me of a location where there was one exact spot that would have zero WiFi signal. Big open space and the access point on a desk, I can move left or right and have full signal except just there.
No mention of 2.4Ghz vs 5Ghz, and channel numbers, which can make a big difference depending on what your neighbours are using
“I didn’t think the simulation would do such a great job”
Guy : so I want you to manually map it out instead
“You know I think the simulation did a great job”
7:52 I did the same - long ethernet cable wired from router to my computer. Was tired of dropped wifi.
Any reason why Powerline wouldn't work for you? Save on the trip hazard
0:15 well first thing I´d say, it would be beneficial to place IoT devices like Philips hue home station a little bit further away from your router. And maybe not place it behind something like your TV
Yep wifi AC and up uses beam forming radio and can't hit anything well within about 2 feet
Does Becca know wifi range extenders are a thing?
This helps so much!!!! Life saviour for me to send to my parents, aunt, uncles since they keep messaging about "fixing the wifi! You're the tech person🤓😂"
For everyone struggling with wifi look up "powerline switches" these devices akin to running an ethernet cable (minus the long trip wire-like cable) throughout your house except it uses your houses electrical grid to pass signals and data from your router to your internet-connected device and visa versa. I have one and it works wonders for all the devices in my room on the 3rd floor. My router is in my basement, in my room, I have a gaming console, various computers
Every time I give The Verge the benefit of the doubt, they disappoint. Tech people how know nothing about tech
Me, at my 148th day in quarantine:
I think this would be a great thing to add to a roomba or some walking (hexapod) or flying drone. Although I love the kick it old school with paper and pencil I can totally see strapping a phone to the roomba and having it automatically take the measurement at each 2 feet. Although really a hexabod walking around would just be cool!
You can do this with AR on a pretty much any smartphone with a TOF sensor, or just optical machine learning in pretty much any recent smartphone. VR systems do this to map out play areas too.
Roombas use optical tracking and machine learning to map the room they are in already too, but it's internal data that is used for memory applications to make efficiently changes to it's pattern and scaling.
Did you take into account Becca being in the way of the phone during monitoring? People absorb signals too
Thank you for a good reminder
Did the same thing for a lab in a GIS class, except I did the entire campus and made a web map.
So not many know that any antenna has directional radiation / sensitivity diagram which affects signal strength much more than attenuation across few ft ?
And with the wavelength of just few inches, 2.4GHz signal will create such interference picture which is impossible to simulate unless the whole apartment is mapped with fraction of an inch accuracy and exact material properties.
this is just wrong. As of 802.11n (most modern routers), beam forming is in the spec. this does not even consider those effects.
Try a TP Link Powerline extender. Works like your cable, but uses the electric ‘harness’ of the apartment to carry the signal.
Love how they overlook what should have been the obvious solution before all the testing; move the router away from the brick corner into a more central, open area of the apartment.
My own solution is to have the slowest internet plan available, so I can't differentiate any potential WiFi bottleneck compared to my normal wired connection quality.
How to improve WiFi.
1. Can you use a cable? Then use a Ethernet cable.
2. Place the router in the center of the space and up high.
3. Try 5 GHz, because 2.4GHz might be crowded.
4. Check router setting to prioritize devices.
5. Seriously just use a cable.
Can I just say that 0:50 is a great shot! Nicely done... whoever you are!? Cheers!
Use a mesh with stronger cignal so it changes from many different channels if it detects interference.
"And I’ll never get that time back" ... and I feel the same way for watching this video.. Seriously. A tech site that doesn't already know to at least try to centralize the router within the home space? Even just moving it over a couple feet to be at the end of that little wall blocking signal would help a good amount.
I'd be really interested in doing something like this myself. The only things I'm curious about are the program that you used to simulate a router (don't know if the name is mentioned, I may have missed it) and how you got the floor plan of the signal overlaid on pictures of the living room/kitchen/bedroom.
This video... Sounds like a wasted of time. So im not taking the risk.
Edit: from comments, seems like i was right.
1. Get a better router. ISP routers are almost always cheap junk. Make sure it has removable antennas.
2. Get directional antennas. I use a Hawking corner-mount model HAI15SC. No booster needed; it runs on the router's native power. It pushes signal through all the walls of my 4 bedroom house and outside into the street. My neighbours could have great Wi-Fi if they knew the password, lol.
Seriously, this video was informative, but it's purely academic. Even some basic Wi-Fi hacks to improve the signal (like not locating the router behind the damn tv) would add content to an otherwise bland eight minutes.
Get a better router... get a access points. 𝗗𝗢𝗡𝗘
I just ended up adding 10 Wifi extender in my house 😂
We need more simulation tools like the one shown off in this vid
That saves legacy time for design and implementation
You can use mesh broadbands to enhance signal strength
What's the point of that last clip? Trying to show that cable speed is faster than wifi?
I mean it is, CAT5e/CAT6 ethernet is quicker than 802.11ac and ax real world speeds
@@vista9434 I know it is, I thought it was too obvious
Have to admit, I only clicked on the vid because of the meme thumbnail. Nicely done
What I see in this video.
Boss:
"Im sorry but your are actually going to work for you know... your job."
Employee:
"Duh"
How I dealt with a similar problems from Spectrum wifi with a Spectrum (Sagemcom) router:
-Ethernet cables to all computer and game consoles
-Wifi for phones and the Switch
Now if Spectrum's service would stop randomly getting throttled or cut out we would have a bulletproof setup
that was interesting and something that i always suspected hence the reason why i use a cable for my main set-ups mainly for speed & reliability, what's not in my control is when a neighbour has joined the same provider as me and the main junction outside the house has to be shared and the service provider doesn't increase the wavelength so the same amount of power shall we say is expected to provide for 2 or 4 more new connections so i have to communicate with them and go through all the "have you checked your cables" speech nonsense for them to admit that the signal has dropped significantly and then to wait for them to come out and goto the exchange box to higher the output so that we go back to getting a decent signal again, why don't the service providers just increase the wavelength or use fatter cables or better still use fibre optics to increase data carrying whenever a new connection is established instead of cutting corners to save money exspecially when i pay for the higher top speed connections and should never have or see a drop in our speeds, i do want my own underground connection but they won't do it even though eventually this will be done to all instead of a silly wire dangling from a communication pole outside in the street that is subject to all sorts of interference from everything.
Wonder if has something to do with money
With Verizon you don't share so no bottle necking
How can you say that the simulation was spot on if you didn’t even overlay The simulation with the measurements? It would’ve been really interesting to see if some of the interference patterns could explain some of the pockets of bad signal. It seems to me that she did not take care of her own orientation probably shielding the signal with her body and some places and not in others.
All my buddies ran their PS3's on the Wi-Fi because "its super easy"
Me: nah, I'm routing wires because I want no interruptions!
I am the developer of Oka Speed Test iOS app. I was shocked in the past two days because of the sudden increase in downloads of this app. I didn't know what happened until I found out here. After watching this awesome video, I feel that it is time to add an AR mode to this app. It may not be useful, but it must be cool. LOL
Very cool, how complicated was the app to develop?
@@k091-d9i The ARKit provided by Apple makes implementing AR functionality much easier than it used to be. But this will be my first attempt at developing an AR app. I'll have to take some time to design it properly and pray there are no bugs.
Science: I can help fix your WiFi. It will just take a little bit of work.
Hoomans: **searching Amazon for cheapest ethernet cable**
The iwifi app can draw the AR Wifi map with your camera of your iphone now, no need the tape
Haven't you guys heard about wifi repeater/extender?
You all need some good gear from UI.com Multiple access points and band steering capable access points are the solution to good wifi as well as making sure everything that can be Ethernet wired, is, so there's more airtime for the wifi connected devices that need to be wifi connected.
Oh the Verge.... there are so many ways to fix these problems and all we did was make a map and suggest a cable lol
Can you convert the discrete wifi samples into continues singnal strength, then plot it?
LOL, LOVE that casual flex of the Gold Play Button at the end.
They're way too bored.
I had the same router (TP-Link Archer C7) and issues. Replaced it with a TP-Link AC2300 and everything is fine now.
No! : you can't just leak my apartment layout and get away with it!
Haha FBI go brtrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
And this is why all my computers are in the same room as the modem - so the ethernet cable can be routed next to the walls and it's not nearly as unsightly.
Wow! They have reinvented old new NetSpot. Very innovative video.
Too cool, great visual of wavelength and signal strength.
Wireless mapping is actually something we do in the critical field of wireless fire alarm systems. Boston is doing it quite a bit.
Why in the world did you consider 40dbm as a solid result? Best experience is at 85-95 dbm in terms of signal strength for current generation of WiFi (ac/ax)
Me and friends at rent: *JuSt BuY A gAmInG wIfI*
Can you make a new 3D map of the apartment that shows the difference between the model and the actual readings? Where is the model most accurate and where is it least accurate?
This is one of the reasons I am a big proponent of "wired networking" whenever possible my devices receive an honest to goodness CAT 6e Ethernet Cable. I also try to group devices on the same switch so all my equipment related to the TV are run on one Gigabit Switch with an uplink to the router, my servers on another switch with a dedicated uplink to the router, ham radios dedicated switch, etc... I am also beginning the process of upgrading my routers (I now have 5 static IPs) so that I can dedicate home automation Wi-Fi on one VLAN that is completely separate from my other equipment. I am amazed at how much communication these devices have constantly, which is causing performance issues on my network particularly with DNS. The other thing that many people need to look at in addition to router placement is separate Wi-Fi Access Points with an Ethernet Cable connecting them to the router or switch. Also, turning the power down and not running maximum will improve speed too by reducing the bouncing of signals. You don't need your Wi-Fi being available to a home 10 doors down.
Actually those readings cannot be reliable because the orientation on every axis would give different value at the same spot
The code for the actual simulation needed to solve the wave equation [(partialQ/partialX)^2+(partialQ/partialY)^2=0].
Oops, they forgot that the human body affects the Wi-Fi signal and she carries the phone around with her as she is measuring. Best to leave the Phone about 3 feet off the floor and step well away from the phone.
Wished for a similarity in comparison :(
Wheres the video on embedding data in radio(micro) waves?
Seeker:
*Marvels at the beautiful physics of radio waves.
*Still gives no due credit to God.
Becca should sit on green zones only and check wifi quality to understand how accurate is the mapping.
Your discription and test left out some detail. The power levels alone are not enough, infact the power levels were pretty decent in the test. Its all about signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR). Since wifi uses unlicensed /open spectrum, signal from your neighbors wifi router will interfere with your signal and bring down your throughput. Thats why you may get different throughput throughout the day despite your routers coverage not changing much. if your neighbors router is transmitting data it will cause more interference
Why not put the router in the middle of the apartment and high or create another access point?
Incredibly cool work, thank you all, this is a question I have wondered about for a long time!!
Wow perfect timing: my wifi just lagged
Coincidence??