Ars Technica reports that in an effort to better understand, and possibly eradicate Wi-Fi dead zones, one man took the hard way by solving the Helmholtz equation for his flat (apartment).
The Helmholtz equation models "the propagation of electronic waves" that involves using a sparse matrix to help minimize the amount of calculation a computer has to do in order to figure out the paths and interferences of waves, in this case from a Wi-Fi router. The whole process is similar to how scattered granular material, like rice or salt, will form complex patterns on top of a speaker depending on where the sound waves are hitting the surfaces.
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Wi-Fi Dead Zones Mapped With a Physics Equation
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(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday August 29 2014, @11:18AM
...for best results, put the router in the middle of your flat (apartment).
Totally worth it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by elf on Friday August 29 2014, @12:19PM
do the same in my house. But I have multiple floor levels so it would require an extra dimension to solve (apparently this complicated things a bit).
I know the results aren't that surprising but I think the visual representation of the results shows a lot more than just presenting the best spot
(Score: 4, Informative) by evilviper on Friday August 29 2014, @12:25PM
Don't bother with TFA... It's just some science-y pictures that will tell you exactly what you would expect, with some texture that makes it look weird. The kinds of thing you see published by every student being introduced to MatLab or similar. He's done nothing special with the data, and found nothing even remotely interesting or surprising. No complex standing waves being compensated for, passive signal reflectors, or any such thing.
His conclusion is just that his WiFi being located in a corner will have problems reaching the far end of his apartment, and will cover his apartment far better if located near the center... Even if you've never installed a WiFi AP before, you're probably still not shocked by that answer.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @06:25PM
You must be a real hoot at parties.
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Friday August 29 2014, @02:04PM
Excluding other emitters' interference, I tend to watch for walls/ceilings and its incidence angle wrt the line between me and the hotspot.
(Score: 1) by panachocala on Friday August 29 2014, @02:48PM
It would be interesting to see the effects of putting a reflective surface on the wall behind the router. There is some anecdotal evidence (google wifi tin foil) that this can improve signal strength. I'm thinking put the router in a corner and put tin foil on the walls behind it to reflect some of the RF back into the room.
Anyways... I've never had a problem with low signal unless leaching off the neighbors ;)
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Friday August 29 2014, @08:12PM
We have what you might call a wireless mesh in our house, but for some reason the AP with the internet connection is in the kitchen cupboard, very close to the fridge. Powerline ethernet won't work and there's all kinds of problems preventing us from getting a decent line of sight for the wifi or laying some cable.
Anyway. 'N is self tuning to the reflections (that's what those CSIRO patents are about). If only/mostly clients on the good side of the fridge are accessing it the throughput does increase, but it will go out of tune with stuff on the bad side.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @05:02PM
awesome!
may i add that a situation with two stationary is meor easy then with say .. uhm ... two stationary and one moving target. the moving target i have found can upset/change the whole "whispy fillament" ALOT.
soemtimes if disabling the wifi in the tablet and then moving near to a AP (and then activating wifi) it will "get" the AP and then moving away slowly will make the "filament" follow the tablet.
doing it this way, you can "pull" the coverage to a location that would normally not get reception, if the tablet-wifi were activated on that spot from zero. -or- maybe it's just the internal transmitter adapting the strength? *shrug*
wifi is really black magic : )
line-of-sight = win!
meor clearance around antenna = win!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @09:51PM
First please learn how to write decent English, that was painful to read.
Second, I imagine your problem is that your tablet is refusing to connect because of the weak signal, but once it has a connection it won't drop the connection until it is truly out of range. If your tablet runs Android. Go into the Wifi settings go into the overflow menu to get to Advanced Settings, then uncheck "Avoid poor connections", and I expect that will solve your connection issue.