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Wifi Signal Strength: What is good and bad?

With all the boons that WiFi brings you, it might get you some minor inconveniences too because of the WiFi signal strength. How many times do you hear yourself complaining, ‘the WiFi signal strength is weak’?. Or ‘my WiFi isn’t working well enough’. Let me ask you how well is well enough? What, according to you, is the ideal WiFi signal strength? Or wish a smooth tethering experience?

I know, I know. We usually and naturally measure the WiFi signal strength depending on how fast the services on our devices work. But there actually is a way to find out the ideal signal strength. Surprised? Don’t be.

Well, if you have one of the best WiFi router at home, it doesn’t mean that you will have a good WiFi signal all the time.

Well, you nowadays have WiFi analyzer apps, that do the bidding for you. These are the apps that lookout for any troubles regarding your WiFi signal strength. They even tend to go to the length of telling the techniques of banishing these very issues.

One of the more popular ones goes by the name NetSpot. Among all its functionalities, what stands out for me, is the gauging of signal strength. Also, it tells you where the problem lies and what all you can do about it. The app is available on the play store for devices supporting Android.

Coming back to the agenda, evaluation of your WiFi signal strength. Yes, you can estimate the power of your wireless connection. And that too in the form of numbers. Let’s continue the discussion about that in the next section.

It’s All About Units | Getting the Hang of Way To Evaluate The WiFi Signal Strength

There are a bunch of techniques experts talk about when it comes to these analyses. Most of these are pretty confusing if you ask me. The one which everyone uses the most, and also is the simplest is using its unit. The unit is dBm. It is a short form for decibel milliwatts.

But wait, it is not as simple as reading milk quantity from its package. Rather it is an unusual and unconventional unit. What makes me say it is the fact that it works with negatives. It can be a bit confusing to start with but eventually gets easier.

It has got a range that serves as a guideline to evaluate how good, or bad your WiFi signal is.

The range measuring the signal strength of your WiFi has -30dbm as the upper limit. While the lowest it can stoop is -90dbm. What you shouldn’t forget here is that -30 is the higher value here. As negatives work in the opposite way.

If the strength is anywhere from -30dbm to -60, then you’re lucky enough to possess an excellent WiFi signal.

Then comes the range from -60 to -70. You cannot say, at that level, that it is excellent. But still enough to run some basic services like urgent video calls. Or even sending a few really urgent emails. That is just the extent of it.

If you go further down to -80 dBm or 90, then the signal strength gets even weaker. It is barely enough to be able to connect to the network.

You will of course want a good internet speed when it comes down to your work because you don’t want any holdup. You might want to check out our methods to improve your internet experience to work hassle free without any distractions.

A Step Further – Evaluation On Different Platforms

Most platforms need third party apps to make the measurement of WiFi signal strength a possibility. Let us now take a look at what we need to do with respect to different platforms.

For Devices that Support Android OS

Android users have loads of apps at their disposal. If they are interested in measuring the stability of their signal, one app we have already discussed above. There are many other WiFi monitoring apps or analyzers that can work perfectly well for you.

Just open the application after you install it. There, select your WiFi and you shall be able to spot the dBm. With the things I told you earlier, you should be able to analyze the signal strength. It really doesn’t get simpler than that.

Devices That Use Mac or Windows Systems

There are a couple of ways of analyzing the wifi signal strength with the Underlying OS. Lets us take a look at what they are.

Using NetSpot App

Let us start by the comparatively easy one, shall we?

So, the Netspot app works like a charm here too. You have two options. Either you want to measure the Wifi signal strength of your own device. In that case, you’ll be able to spot a small slider-ish thing. Just toggle it to be able to use the mode ‘Discover’.

Or, the other way, that you want the full-fledged analysis of the whole of the network. That procedure is slightly longer. Slide the slider tool so that it shows the Survey option. Note that You’ll need to slide it to the top-left. After that, take the new survey, once you’ve done that, the app requires a map. You can opt to either load one on the site if you have one. Or, the app has got inbuilt tools to draw one to measure your wifi signal strength.

Both of these done? Great, the last step to measure the wifi signal strength is to tread through the whole map, while scanning it. Do it until you cover the whole area.

You can cease scanning after that.

Using in-Built WiFi Signal Strength Utility

The other way to get an idea about your WiFi signal strength works differently for both operating systems. We’ll basically be trying to use the in-built WiFi signal strength utility. As you can deduce, the operating systems already possess these extra utilities or features. We’ll be using what is already in them.

But they’re kind of make-do options. I’m not sure about the accuracy. So I won’t suggest these to anyone. Anyway, if you prefer device speed over all else, it is essential that you get to know how they work.

For Windows

Like all other settings, we need to get to the control panel for that one too. For the sake of convenience, just start typing control panel on the search bar at the bottom left of your screen.

You’ll see the options appearing, click it to open the panel.

From thereon, you’ll have to get to the section related to networks, so select network and internet. It might vary according to your windows version.

Next, to use in-built utility to measure WiFi signal strength, you’ll see a number of wireless networks there. From the list, you’ll see the one relevant to you.

Select it and click the mouse’s right button.
Then select the option that says to disconnect or connect. That enables you to check out your WiFi’s strength.

And if you have a Windows 10 OS and you are connected to a WiFi network but don’t remember the password. Then checkout 3 simple methods to find your WiFi password.

For Apple Devices

Obviously, the same way-out is available for apple owners. Let us see how you see the wifi signal strength utility if you are the proud possessor of MAC.

Open the ‘go-to’ folder. You can do that by pressing three keys command, shift, and alphabet ‘g’ at one time.

A small pane or dialogue box opens. Type the path /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications in that pane as it is. You can copy it and paste it there if you wish it.

Going on, if the next step prompts you to enter the passkey, do it.
You’ll see a couple of options like RAID utility, directory utility, etc. From all of these, choose the one at the last that is ‘Wireless Diagnostics’.
Click twice on it. Affirm the window which asks you to run the diagnostics.
Then in the next option, select the first option. You want to monitor the connection of your WiFi.

That is it. That is how you can use the utility in Mac OS.

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Conclusion

That was a little something about your WiFi. No need to make bizarre estimates now. You can correctly analyze the signal strength by following on lines of the article. Getting to know it can make it easy to fix, when and if it takes a dip.

So, go on, try it with your own devices.

That is it for today, folks. Do visit us for more such articles.