A quick guide to wireless range and repeaters

Whether you’re creating a smart home or adding to your existing smart home, it’s important to understand the basics of wireless range and network repeaters, upload and download speed differences.

Introduction

Wireless networks have come a long way in the past decade. And yet, sustained Wi-Fi speeds are still a problem in a lot of situations.

“What’s the wireless range?” It’s a complicated topic, but the simple answer is - how far your signal reach. This simple answer doesn't necessarily answer all the issues deeply related with the issues you might have. Your router or wireless access point specifications might say the range is 300m radious but in reality it may be drastically reduced due to the electromagnetic noise from various devices.

Here are a few things that affect wireless noise:

• Wi-Fi access points ( yours and your neighbors)
• Cell phones
• Microwave ovens
• Baby monitors
• Fluorescent lights
• Wireless game controllers
• Devices that form their own private Wi-Fi networks (e.g., Sonos, Roku and other)
• Low quality electronics that saturate the airwaves with electromagnetic radiation

Since dbell works in the 2.4 GHz frequency space, it is most affected by 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi networks and microwave ovens. 

Wi-Fi speeds could be affected by:

1. The Quality of the Router
2. The way your router is set up
3. Whether there’s nearby interference,
4. How far apart your devices are from the router
5. Which channels are being used

• Change your Wi-Fi channel
  The 2.4 GHz frequency used by Wi-Fi actually comprise a range of channels, just like broadcast TV. If you can move your Wi-Fi channel to be farther away from your neighbors channel, it will go a long way toward reducing the noise.

• Use repeaters
  Repeaters can be used to relay messages between dbell and the router, effectively increasing the overall range of the network—even when things are noisy.
• Look at the noise
  You can use free Wi-Fi analyzer Android app to see the most used channels. Your router also provide tools to see which channels are saturated and allows you to select a different channel