{"id":1866,"date":"2020-04-15T11:31:11","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T10:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/eda-news\/?p=1866"},"modified":"2020-04-15T11:38:35","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T10:38:35","slug":"top-5-expert-tips-from-dr-huiling-zhu-for-improving-your-work-from-home-wi-fi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/2020\/04\/15\/top-5-expert-tips-from-dr-huiling-zhu-for-improving-your-work-from-home-wi-fi\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 5 expert tips from Dr Huiling Zhu for improving your home Wi-Fi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since working from home (WFH) has become a national circumstance over the past few weeks, many have found themselves depending on their home Wi-Fi to complete their work, at times discovering the signal cutting out midway through a video conference call or a document not saving to an online system.<\/p>\n

Dr Huiling Zhu<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is a wireless communications expert\u00a0from the\u00a0School of Engineering and Digital Arts<\/a><\/strong>, and she has given her\u00a0top 5 tips<\/strong>\u00a0for improving your\u00a0Wi-Fi for working from home<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The main issue people are unknowingly facing is the softening\u00a0effect that walls and floors\/ceilings have on Wi-Fi strength<\/strong>. To fix this, you should place the Wi-Fi router in a place as close as possible to\u00a0the centre of the house<\/strong>\u00a0and not to cover or block it behind a concrete wall. This will\u00a0optimise the Wi-Fi signal strength<\/strong>\u00a0throughout the whole building.<\/li>\n
  2. The strength of the Wi-Fi can also depend on\u00a0how close you are to it<\/strong>. You wouldn\u2019t expect to pick up your home Wi-Fi from several streets away, and this same logic works within the home. Simply put, generally,\u00a0the closer your work station is to the router<\/strong>, the stronger the signal will be.<\/li>\n
  3. Strong interference may come from\u00a0neighbour\u2019s wireless routers<\/strong>. If so, either remove that router from your device or try not to have your device close to your neighbour\u2019s side. With that kind of\u00a0proximity to the neighbouring router<\/strong>, your device may start to compare the signal strength from two different routers, which\u00a0affects the connection<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  4. Turn off all other operations\u00a0your Wi-Fi is trying to cope<\/strong>\u00a0with. The Wi-Fi doesn\u2019t know to prioritise the\u00a0video conference call<\/strong>\u00a0to your boss over the Netflix show everyone has quietly\u00a0running in the background<\/strong>. If you\u2019re working on a laptop\/pc, then\u00a0turn off your phone\u2019s connection to the Wi-Fi<\/strong>, and video game consoles too. All of these put a demand on your Wi-Fi and it may\u00a0struggle to supply to them all<\/strong>\u00a0at peak times.\u00a0Save the more luxurious uses<\/strong>\u00a0of the Internet, e.g. video streaming, to when you don\u2019t need it for work.<\/li>\n
  5. Some people have reported<\/strong>\u00a0that their microwave oven affects their Wi-Fi.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible, as they use the same frequencies, but microwave ovens\u00a0should be well-shielded<\/strong>.\u00a0 If this happens, you should probably get\u00a0your microwave checked<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Since working from home (WFH) has become a national circumstance over the past few weeks, many have found themselves depending on their home Wi-Fi to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39150,"featured_media":1869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[842,124],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1866"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1870,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866\/revisions\/1870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}