Is your Wi-Fi not up to the demands of springtime browsing? Jonathan Parkyn reveals how to extend your router's signal to your garden and beyond
If an Englishman’s home is his castle, then his shed is his private country residence – a secluded sanctuary where you can sit and read the newspaper in peace. But what if that newspaper is online? And what if your router’s Wi-Fi signal barely stretches to your patio, let alone to the end of the garden or garage?
Here we’ll look at the easiest and most effective ways to extend your signal so it covers your whole house and garden, as well as any outhouses you may have. Some involve buying gadgets to give your Wi-Fi a boost, but other tricks can make your Wi-Fi reach further for free.
Bear in mind the effectiveness of each suggestion will depend on various factors, including the layout of your home, the capabilities of your existing router and the distance you need to cover.
Move your router
Let’s start with an easy trick that costs nothing. Wi-Fi signals get weaker the further you are away from your router, and the more barriers – such as walls – there are in between. Often, all you need to do for a stronger signal is to reposition your router so there are fewer walls and less physical distance between you and it.
Admittedly, it won’t always be possible to put your router in the best possible position. It has to remain fairly close to a phone socket or cable box in order to connect to broadband. But even moving it slightly – raising it higher off the ground, for instance – can offer a surprisingly big boost.
Make your own parabolic reflector
Parabolic reflectors, like those used in satellite dishes and radio telescopes, can really boost a wireless signal. You could buy one, like the TP-Link TL-ANT2424B (www.snipca.com/16040), though this will set you back around £40 and requires your router to have a special (type N) connector.
Instead, why not make your own reflector for free using kitchen foil and a piece of cardboard? There’s a free template to download and print at www.snipca.com/16041. You’ll need to experiment to get the best results, especially if your router’s antenna is internal. When we tried it, we noticed a small directional boost which, if we aimed the reflector correctly, was enough to reach slightly further into our garden. Others have reported better results, and considering it won’t cost you anything it’s certainly worth a try.
Switch Wi-Fi channels
If there are too many other networks (your neighbours’ Wi-Fi, for example) using the same channel as yours, your Wi-Fi’s quality and range will suffer. One way to potentially fix this is to switch to a less congested channel.
First, find the least congested channels that are available to you. The free tool WifiChannelMonitor (www.snipca.com/16061) is a portable PC program that lets you compare the speed of all 13 available Wi-Fi channels and see who’s using them. Alternatively, Wifi Analyzer is a free Android app that lets you compare channels from your phone or tablet (www.snipca.com/16042).
Next, switch to your chosen channel using your router’s configuration utility. You can usually reach this via your browser – see your router’s instructions for details. Navigate to the Wi-Fi settings page, look for the channel selection option, then choose a channel and save your changes. Finally, reboot the router.
Convert an old router into a Wi-Fi extender
Wi-Fi extenders act like outposts for your router. Place one of these devices in your conservatory or back room to boost your Wi-Fi to cover your garden, or upstairs to cover your loft. A new Wi-Fi extender costs around £50 (BT’s 11ac dual-band extender, for example, is £49.99: www.snipca.com/16044), but if you have an old router hanging around you may be able to turn it into a Wi-Fi extender for free.
Precise instructions will depend on the router, but here’s the basic gist. Access your current main router’s configuration utility as mentioned on the previous page, then make a note of its IP address, Wi-Fi name (SSID), channel, security type and password.
Next, switch off your main router and attach your old router to a PC via an Ethernet cable. You may need to reset the old router to its factory settings (there’s usually a button on the back for doing this). Access the old router’s configuration utility, and on the Wi-Fi settings page enter the details you copied from your main router. Save these settings, then head to the IP Addresses (or similar) page. You’ll need to disable DHCP on the old router and assign it a fixed IP address. You can find out more about this by searching for ‘fixed IP’ or ‘static IP’ on your ISP’s or router manufacturer’s site (here’s a useful page from Linksys, for example: www.snipca.com/16062).
Restart the router, then disconnect it from your PC and place it closer to the garden than your main router. Connect it to your main router using a long Ethernet cable, which you can buy for around a fiver on Amazon (www.snipca.com/16063), or more powerful but more expensive Powerline adapters, such as TP-Link’s PA411KIT AV500 Starter Kit (£25, www.snipca.com/16050), then restart both routers. Once they’re both up and running, test the Wi-Fi signal strength in your garden.
Choose a Powerline adapter with built-in Wi-Fi
The most effective way of getting Wi-Fi into your shed is to use Powerline adapters with built-in Wi-Fi, such as TP-Link’s AV500 Passthrough Powerline WiFi Kit (£78, www.snipca.com/16049).
If your shed has a mains power supply of its own, simply plug one of the units into a power socket near your router and connect it via an Ethernet cable, then plug the other unit into an electrical socket in your shed.
If your shed isn’t connected to the mains, you can still use Powerline devices to boost your Wi-Fi signal from the back of the house. For a smaller garden, the TP-Link AV500 might still do the trick if you plug the wireless unit into a socket in your conservatory or back room. For a big garden, you may need something more powerful, such as Devolo’s new dLan 1200+ WiFi ac Starter Kit (£155, www.snipca.com/16051). That may seem expensive, but it’s very fast, using the latest wireless technology to provide access over an extremely wide range.
To give you a rough idea, we tested the wireless range of the TP-Link AV500 in a real garden. It gave us stable Wi-Fi at usable speeds (around 30Mbps) up to a distance of 15 metres. In the same environment, the Devolo unit was able to provide the same stability and speeds up to a distance of 40 metres.