How frustrating is it when your WiFi signal drops out right in the middle of binging your favorite Netflix show or downloading a critical work email? You spend all this time and money setting up your WiFi network and still get annoying zones around your house where nothing seems to work. The same happens at the office, the library, or even the local coffee shop. No matter where you go, there are always these WiFi dead spots that seem to prevent you from getting the most out of your electronics.
We’ve put together a few tips on how to troubleshoot WiFi issues and workaround those annoying WiFi dead spots.
A WiFi dead spot is some part of your home, office, or business that doesn’t receive a solid WiFi signal. As soon as you walk into that specific area, your WiFi drops away and stops working. There are many reasons why these dead spots are created.
In general, the closer you can put your router to the center of your intended coverage area, the better your WiFi reception will be for your devices. However, there are other common issues that can pop up with your network connectivity.
For instance, if your device says it is connected to WiFi, but there is no internet broadcasting, it could mean there is a problem with the adapter or you have incorrect settings. Most often, people cannot connect to the WiFi because they are too far away or need to reset their network connection.
Sometimes your WiFi will seem incredibly slow. This could be because of faulty wiring or because everyone in the local area has decided that right now is the best time to do some early holiday shopping online. When there are too many people using a network at once, it can slow due to congestion. Think of it like an overcrowded highway with backed up traffic.
Some other common reasons your WiFi may not be working are because a recent update may have caused conflicts or an authentication issue between your device and the network is occurring. Of course, the easiest fix is to try and reconnect or reset the router. We’ll get into that a bit later on.
Before you start, make sure your router is on and broadcasting. Also, check that any antennas are pointed upwards, and all wired connections are correctly made.
The low-tech way to discover any WiFi dead spots is to walk around with your mobile device and watch the icon to see when it drops away. While that may work for a quick fix, you should try a site survey if you really want to get the job done right.
The WiFi site survey provides you with a ton of valuable info on how your network works and where the signal is strongest in your coverage area. The point of a site survey is to give you a visual representation of where your WiFi is accessible.
When you conduct a WiFi survey you’ll get valuable information and tools including:
The main feature of using NetSpot is that you do not need additional WiFi adapters to get these measurements. The software is designed for an ordinary computer user in an easy to understand format.
A decent WiFi site survey offers accurate heatmaps with powerful visualizations all at an affordable price. NetSpot does that and more. It takes all the backend knowledge used by professional network admins and shortens it into valuable, easy to decipher content for your at-home convenience.
A WiFi heatmap is a visual representation of the wireless signal coverage and strength. Professionals use heatmaps overlaid on top of their location building plans. This way, they can correspond the different areas of the heatmap to the building's correct rooms and dead zones.
NetSpot features heatmaps that visualize your WiFi analysis. These visual representations demonstrate many important data points using passive and active scanning as well as troubleshooting features. This empowers each user to determine noise issues, signal levels, download/upload rates, network overlapping, and much more. The color-coded overlay on each heatmap is specifically designed around each feature. That makes using the software really simple.
The WiFi signal survey from NetSpot is an effective tool for managing and troubleshooting your home network. It is commonly used by professional and network engineers in the business and industrial world.
There are a few other tricks and tips you can do to improve your home’s WiFi network. The first thing you may want to do is called a “Cold Boot” of your network device. This is pulling the power cable adapter from the back of your modem and router, waiting a minute or so, and then plugging them back in to restart. This flushes the cache of the devices and usually does the trick.
Next, you may want to check if there are any local ISP outages where you are located. Instead of spending hours trying to troubleshoot WiFi, the problem could be on your provider’s side. Give them a quick call to confirm everything is good from their end. This could include checking if you have an unpaid balance on your account.
As before, make sure everything is turned on, connections are good, and the antenna is up. There could be a hardware issue lurking underneath the signal loss. Check and restart your devices and connect after a Cold Boot. If they connect, no worries. If not, you may need to systemically check each of your network devices to ensure they are working properly.
Once you have gone through all the other troubleshooting tips, you should open your NetSpot application. Test your WiFi coverage using their powerful visual heatmaps. NetSpot is the best because it is a simple user interface. It has all the capabilities of a professional app that easily conducts wireless site surveys, WiFi analysis, and offers simple troubleshooting solutions.
With NetSpot, you get all the power and data the professionals rely upon. You can do a full network survey right in the convenience of your home. The efficient design allows for everyday computer users to leverage incredible tools. All without having to spend years studying or working in the IT field.
To use NetSpot, simply:
That’s it, now you can review the data and utilize the powerful visualizations from the heatmaps to determine what area of your location are better than others.
Avoiding WiFi dead spots is a real issue. With so many changes to remote and hybrid working models over the past couple of years, more and more people need to rely upon a strong WiFi signal to perform their jobs, go to school, or communicate with loved ones.
If you want an excellent way to ensure your home, office, and business WiFi is performing with high-quality speed and signal strength, you cannot go wrong with the ideal software from NetSpot. You can check out their software by visiting their website. There is a free edition that will give you a good idea of NetSpot’s capabilities, or you can upgrade to the paid versions.
