How do I get wifi to reach the whole house?

Wifi weakens with distance and with every wall it passes through. The three real options are moving the source, adding more sources, or running a cable — and only one of those is free.

What you'll need

• Ethernet cable (optional)
• Mesh system or powerline adapters (optional)

Step by step

1. Move the router first.Central, high, out of a cupboard and away from the wall. It costs nothing and frequently solves the problem entirely.
2. Map where the signal actually fails.Walk round with a phone and note the signal in each room. It tells you whether you need one extra node or three, and where.
3. Understand why basic extenders disappoint.They receive and retransmit on the same radio, which roughly halves throughput. They also often create a separate network name that devices cling to at low signal.
4. Prefer a mesh system for whole-house coverage.Nodes share one network name and hand devices between them intelligently. It is more expensive than an extender and considerably better.
5. Place mesh nodes where the signal is still good.About halfway between the router and the dead zone, not in the dead zone itself. A node with a weak connection to the router relays a weak signal.
6. Use a wired backhaul if you can.Mesh nodes connected by ethernet perform dramatically better than wireless ones. Even one wired node improves the whole system.
7. Consider powerline adapters for a single distant room.They carry data over the mains wiring. Performance varies with the wiring but they often work well where wifi cannot reach.
8. Run a cable for anything that matters.A TV, a games console, a home office. A cable is faster, more reliable and immune to interference. It is the unglamorous best answer.

Tips

• Thick stone walls, foil-backed plasterboard and underfloor heating all block wifi substantially. In those houses, mesh with wired backhaul is often the only thing that works.
• If you rent or cannot run cables, flat ethernet cable can be run under carpet edges and along skirting quite discreetly.
• Check your router's age. A router more than five or six years old may be the limiting factor regardless of what you add to it.

Common mistakes

• Putting an extender in the dead zone — It can only relay what it receives. Placed where the signal is already poor, it rebroadcasts a poor signal.
• Buying an extender when a mesh system is needed — Extenders halve throughput and create sticky separate networks. For whole-house coverage, mesh is a different and better technology.
• Leaving the router in a cupboard by the front door — It is usually where the line enters, and it is usually the worst position in the house. Moving it is free.

Questions people ask