Home Wi-Fi, explained

Why is the Wi-Fi bad in that one room?

Practical guides to the problems people actually have at home, written around one idea: measure the rooms first, then fix the right thing. Start from the problem you're seeing.

Find your problem How we test

Wi-Fi map of a house where the colour changes sharply at a thick wall — A room-by-room map with demo data: the signal holds until the thick wall, then drops.

What's going wrong?

A room or a floor gets bad Wi-Fi

Dead zones, weak rooms, walls, floors and the places routers can't reach.

Measuring your Wi-Fi

Reading the real signal, and the numbers that explain a slow connection.

How can I see the real Wi-Fi signal on my iPhone?Wi-Fi signal on iPhone · 4 min read
Why is the Wi-Fi slow with full bars?Full bars but slow Wi-Fi · 4 min read
How do I measure jitter and latency on my home connection?Latency, jitter and packet loss · 4 min read
How do I make a Wi-Fi map of my home?Wi-Fi heatmap · 4 min read

Where the router should go

Most coverage problems start with where the router sits.

Mesh, extenders and access points

When one router isn't enough: what to buy, how many and where.

Calls, games and connected devices

When a specific device or activity is the one that suffers.

Measure first, then fix

Most Wi-Fi advice skips the first step: finding out where the connection actually fails. That's the step our guides start from.

1 Draw the rooms
Walk through your home with the iPhone and trace the rooms you care about.
2 Test where you stand
In each spot the app checks how quickly and steadily the router answers.
3 Read the rooms
Each room gets a score, worst first, so you know where to start.