Where to put your router for better Wi-Fi

The best place for your router

The best place for a Wi-Fi router is near the center of your home, on a shelf or table off the floor, in the open, with as few walls and as little metal as possible between it and the rooms you use.

Wi-Fi spreads out from the router in every direction, and it gets weaker with distance and with everything it has to pass through. The router makers we checked (TP-Link, Netgear, Linksys, eero and Google) agree on the basics: central, in the open and off the floor. They differ only on how high. Treat these as the rules:

• Central. Put the router near the middle of the area you want covered. TP-Link says a router against an outside wall leaves the far side of the home with a much weaker signal, and Netgear says to avoid corners.
• Off the floor. Linksys says a router on the floor sends much of its signal into the ground. The makers’ heights differ: TP-Link suggests about 1 to 1.5 feet, Linksys at least a few feet, Google eye level, and eero halfway between the floor and the ceiling. We think an open shelf or tabletop between table height and eye level is the safe pick.
• On the main floor. Linksys calls the basement the worst place for a router, because concrete and dense walls block the signal on its way upstairs. In a two-story home, Netgear recommends a central spot on the first floor.
• In the open. Don’t hide the router in a cabinet, a closet, a media console or behind large furniture. Linksys, Netgear, eero and TP-Link all say it weakens the signal, and Linksys and Netgear add that a closed space can make the router overheat.
• Cool and out of the sun. TP-Link and eero say direct sunlight and nearby heat sources hurt performance.

The modem usually has to stay near the jack where your internet line comes in, but the router doesn’t. Google points out that the router’s position depends on where the modem is and how long your cables are, so a longer Ethernet cable between the two is often all it takes. If you can move both out of the basement into a central spot, eero says that one change improves the speed of your whole network. If your modem and router are one box from your internet provider, you’re tied to that jack, and the fixes in the last section help more.

What to keep your router away from

Keep your router away from metal, mirrors, water, thick walls and other electronics, because they block, reflect or drown out the Wi-Fi signal.

TP-Link says a router can hardly get through three thick concrete walls, and eero says older homes with plaster, lath or chicken wire in the walls are especially hard on Wi-Fi. Doors help: eero says placing units near doors may help, because wood is easier for the signal to get through than dense walls.

Skip the aluminum-foil “Wi-Fi reflectors” you see on social media. Netgear says they scatter the signal and cause interference instead of boosting it.

If your router has antennas, point them up

If your router has external antennas, point them straight up for Wi-Fi on one floor, and angle them for coverage across floors.

TP-Link recommends vertical antennas for coverage on a single level, and an angle of about 30 degrees when the Wi-Fi also has to reach the floor above or below. In TP-Link’s own test with a wall-mounted router, vertical antennas gave a phone at the same height a clearly stronger signal than antennas tilted 45 degrees or laid flat.

If your router has no external antennas, there’s nothing to adjust: set it on a stable, flat surface such as a table or shelf, as eero recommends for its units. Eero says they send their signal mostly along the surface they sit on, a bit more upward than downward, which is one more reason to keep them off the floor.

2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz: which band reaches where

The 2.4 GHz band reaches farthest, 5 GHz is faster but shorter-range, and 6 GHz is the fastest and least crowded but has the shortest range and needs a Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 device.

Most routers broadcast on two or three bands at once, and your phone picks one. The bands behave differently through walls, which is why the same spot can be fine on one band and weak on another:

The higher the frequency, the shorter the reach, because higher frequencies lose strength faster and have a harder time getting through walls and floors (TP-Link, Netgear). The 6 GHz band makes up for it with room: when the FCC opened it to Wi-Fi in April 2020, it said the move would increase the spectrum available for Wi-Fi by nearly five times.

That’s also why placement matters most for your fastest devices: the 5 and 6 GHz bands they use are the ones walls weaken most. Some systems, such as Google’s Nest Wifi, use one network name for all bands and steer each device to the best one, so you don’t have to choose. Google notes that many other routers broadcast a separate network for each band, and then you pick the band yourself.

If you have a smart plug or other gadget that needs 2.4 GHz, our first smart plug guide explains how to set it up.

Test your placement in 10 minutes

The best way to know whether a new spot helps is to measure it: run a phone speed test at the same spots before and after the move. The tests take about 10 minutes, plus a few minutes to move the router.

When moving the router isn’t enough

When the best spot still leaves a dead zone, add a second Wi-Fi source. We think you should wire it in with Ethernet if you can, use a mesh system for a larger home, and use an extender for one weak room.

Wired backhaul means the second unit gets its connection to the router over an Ethernet cable instead of over the air, so the link between the two units isn’t weakened by walls or by sharing airtime with your devices. Your devices’ own connection to each unit still depends on the walls between them. The second unit can be a mesh unit or an access point, a box that turns a wired connection into Wi-Fi; TP-Link’s extenders can work this way in access point (AP) mode. If you have the cable, we think this is the best fix of the three.

A mesh system is a set of two or more Wi-Fi units that act as a single network with one name. Google recommends placing each extra unit about halfway toward the area that needs better Wi-Fi, no more than two rooms from the router or another unit. Eero suggests 20 to 30 feet between units, and no more than 50 feet.

An extender repeats your router’s signal into a weak area. Netgear notes that an extender shares bandwidth with your router, which is why it suits one problem room better than a whole house. Put it about halfway between the router and the dead zone, as TP-Link recommends, not in the dead zone itself: like a mesh unit, it can only pass on the signal it receives.