What Causes Wifi Interference? | 9 Factors

What Causes Wifi Interference – Overview

Many elements can disrupt your wifi signal for building materials, microwaves, aquariums, and electronics, which causes wifi interference (especially in houses).

They make your wifi slower than it should be. It’s a silent thief stealing you the speed you are supposed to get and pay for, so even if you support gigabit speeds, you still feel a noticeable loss in signal strength.

The usage of the internet is highly noticeable as of now. In 2021, there were around 302 million internet users in the USA.

Often, people may face signal issues when using the internet or home wifi. We are furnishing some top reasons for wifi interference and some quick tips to reduce its effect on your connection.

9 Factors Behind Wifi Interference at Home

1. Wifi Signal Interference

The first go for a router that supports the 5 GHz frequency band as they have signals with a shorter range unlikely to get disruption than older equipment using the 2.4 GHz band.

2. Different Network Located Around Your Location

Closely located networks will affect the wireless capacity of your network device. Neighboring networks will more possibly disrupt a router with a 2.4 GHz band. Two different sets of equipment are more disruptive than the one next door.

3. Bluetooth Signals

Bluetooth uses a technology called Frequency-Hopping, so Bluetooth-capable equipment jumps into the frequency range wifi equipment disrupts wifi traffic.

In some cases, the wifi access point of your router will change the channel to overcome the interference, which causes more wifi traffic interference.

Bluetooth Signals

4. Radio and other Radio Frequency Based Devices

Devices like walkie-talkies, radio locator baby monitors tend to use the frequency 802.11 b/g/n (the older wifi standards) that interfere with the 2.4 GHz band of your router.

These devices use the entire frequency band, disrupting other communication on the same frequency.

5. Microwaves

These ovens, to heat food, use electromagnetic waves of 2.4 GHz. The older routers (802.11 b/g/n) also use the same electromagnetic waves at 2.4 GHz, but weaker transmit power.

All microwave ovens are well covered, but there is always a chance of leakage of waves and transmission of 1000 w can easily disrupt a wifi access point that can only transmit a maximum of 0.1 w.

6. Walls

The building materials like concrete, steel, and thick timber can block wireless signals at different levels. They weaken the wifi signal when the signal has to go through thick walls. Where you place your router may matter more than you’d think.

7. Metal and Floor

Floor heating creates issues for the wireless signals as they have to reach multiple floors. Also, if the router is surrounded by a metallic substance, like inside a metal cabinet, it will cause serious network issues.

8. Water

The wireless signals will struggle to go through water, so the Hydronics for heating in your home or a giant aquarium will create signal issues.

Factors Behind Wifi Interference at Home – water

9. Television

Having a router near to your TV can cause network interference as the TV also uses broadcasting signals. Make sure to keep it at a distant place.

How to Fix Wifi Interference?

As we have discussed the basic and important reasons for the wifi signal drop, we will now focus on the workaround.

Some objects can be moved or can move the access point away. But a concrete wall or any other building materials are difficult to address.

The most recommended solution can be a network of several wireless access points to find a way around the obstacles. You can use a wifi extender for this purpose.

Having said elaborated on possible reasons that cause wifi interference, you can apply below fixes and tips to overcome them:

Keep your router away from other routers and appliances like TV, and radio devices.
Use wifi extenders or different ways to create a network of access points to bypass dense walls and building materials.
Switch off and Unplug the appliances when they are not in use.
Do not use too many wireless devices at once within proximity of each other.
Upgrade your router with one having a frequency 5GHz.
Update your router firmware frequently to the latest firmware.

Conclusion:

Wireless networks keep us so connected and you can’t live without wifi. A slow wifi signal is a pain and to increase wifi speed for your devices, never ignore the significance of an upgrade to the router firmware.

The device manufacturers keep releasing upgrades frequently to enhance the performance of their devices.

Regularly visit their website and check for any latest firmware releases, which are free of cost.

Alternatively, you can go to your router homepage, refer to the user manual of your router device and directly check for any latest firmware releases as the manufacturers keep an option for that.

To overcome interference by metal and concrete obstruction, ensure your device broadcasting your wifi signal is within the strategical range of your gadgets which minimizes the interference of metal and concrete.