Short answer: walk your home with one phone or laptop. In every room, note the signal reading and run a speed test where you’d normally use the device, and mark both on a rough floor plan. Compare each room with readings taken next to the router. The pattern tells you what to fix: one weak room calls for a different fix than a whole weak floor. ASUS points out that slow Wi-Fi can simply be a coverage problem.
What you need
- One device for every reading. Use the same phone or laptop throughout, so the readings compare fairly.
- A way to read the signal. Wi-Fi signal strength explained shows where to see it on Windows, Mac, phones and router apps, and what the numbers mean. On Windows the reading is a percentage; Microsoft documents that 0% corresponds to -100 dBm and 100% to -50 dBm, with interpolation in between.
- A speed test, from your provider’s app or any speed-test site, run the same way in each room.
- Optional extras:
- On a Mac, Wireless Diagnostics (Option-click the Wi-Fi menu) checks the connection where you are. Apple says it lists detected issues and possible solutions without changing your settings. Apple’s page doesn’t describe it as a way to map signal room by room.
- If you already have a TP-Link Deco system, its app shows the signal between units; TP-Link gives 2 bars as the recommended strength.
- Some ASUS routers have Wi-Fi Radar, whose site survey finds nearby access points and collects their signal quality, bandwidth and channels. ASUS describes it as discovering all wireless access points in your environment, not mapping your own coverage room by room. ASUS says enabling it may lower wireless performance, and the feature has been removed from some firmware.
Walk the house
- Sketch each floor with the rooms roughly where they are, and mark the router.
- Pick a time when the network is fairly quiet, so the speed results compare fairly.
- Take a first reading and speed test next to the router. This is your baseline.
- In each room, stand or sit where you’d normally use the device, wait a few seconds, then note the signal reading and run one speed test.
- Write both numbers in the room on your sketch. Include hallways, the garden or garage if you use them, and any spot where you might put a mesh node.
Read the map
TP-Link notes that metal, walls and floors can all interfere with wireless signals, and the closer its units are to them, the weaker the connection.
If the map points to mesh, ASUS, which sells mesh systems, recommends one for whole-house coverage across two or more floors, with a node placed between the router and the dead zone; its advice is written for its AiMesh systems. Your map shows where that is. How many mesh nodes you need and mesh Wi-Fi vs a router help with the next step.
