Installing a wireless repeater at home is common. It is quite common to need the signal to reach a specific area better, something that happens if we are very far from the router. But you will not always really need to install a device of this type. For this reason, in this article we are going to tell you about a couple of options with which you will be able to find out whether or not you need to install a Wi-Fi repeater at home to have better Internet.
Do I need to have a Wi-Fi repeater at home?
Although it is not the only option to improve the connection, it is one of the most used. They are easy to use, they are usually cheap and you can place them in any area without difficulty. But they don’t always help improve the signal and it’s not even always necessary. Sometimes the connection problems come for other reasons, so it is convenient to rule out other failures.
Check the signal
The first thing you should do is check the signal that reaches you. This is very simple and is essential to see if you really have to install a Wi-Fi repeater to improve it or not. How can you check it? The easiest would be to look at the Wi-Fi icon in Windows as well as on mobile. Visually you will be able to see how much signal reaches you. But of course, it is not something so exact.
To have more reliable results, what you can do is see exactly what percentage of power reaches you. On Windows, you can go to Start, enter Command Prompt, and run the netsh wlan show interfaces command. It will show you information related to the wireless network and one of the sections is Signal. It is measured in percentage.
The closer to 100% it is, the better. That means you don’t really need a wireless repeater and your network problems may be for another reason. Maybe you have a failure in the network card, a virus in the system or outdated equipment. It would not be a coverage problem.
measure internet speed
You can also measure the speed of the Internet. It is something usual to check if there is a problem or everything works perfect. Another indicator to know if with a Wi-Fi repeater we can have a better signal and avoid the usual problems. You can see this both on your mobile and on your computer.
What you should do is use some speed test In Internet. Once there, you give it a test and it will show you both the upload speed and the download speed. You will also be able to see the ping or latency, which is important to be as low as possible. If you see that the speed is too low, it is possible that by installing such a device it will improve. You can avoid a dead zone or a place where the coverage is worse.
Keep in mind that for a good Internet speed, other factors come into play such as the Wi-Fi channel you use, the band you connect to, etc. You should also look at that.
In short, as you can see with these two methods you can see if your Wi-Fi connection works well or it is better to install a Wi-Fi repeater. The idea is to achieve good coverage, but also that the speed is adequate and not have problems. Detecting outages in Wi-Fi is key.
