Before you buy a wifi extender: the placement hour that solves half the dead zones

The market sells the extender for the bedroom that drops, and the bedroom that drops is usually a geometry problem wearing a hardware costume: a router living behind the television, on the floor, in the entrance corner where the builder ran the line - every one of those is the network making the worst possible choice on the household's behalf, for free. Before any box is bought from the shelf this desk's extender-versus-second-router page argues over, spend the hour this page prints; it is the only networking upgrade that costs nothing and routinely doubles the signal where it matters.

The three placement laws, with the physics under each

• High and central: wifi radiates outward and downward from its antenna like a lightbulb in a ceiling - a router on the floor beside the door is a lamp in a cupboard. The shelf-top in the sitting room's middle, near the ceiling line, reaches every bedroom with fewer walls to cross, because the signal's budget is spent on obstacles, not distance alone.
• Away from the three materials: concrete block drinks signal the brick the whole country builds with, metal eats it - the structural pillar, the zinc, the water heater's tank, the mirror-wall - and the microwave at work blasts the exact frequency band the 2.4-gigahertz wifi uses. The walk-around that finds the router's best shelf is these three sentences: off the block's centre line, clear of metal and glass runs, two metres from the kitchen's microwave habit.
• Visible, not hidden: the cabinet, the TV's back, the generator shed all make tidy choices and dead rooms; the router wants open air, antennas vertical (their pattern spreads horizontally from an upright stick - lying a router flat on its antennas is a deliberate self-sabotage), and its own ventilation, because a hot router throttles like a hot phone.

The two bands, assigned per device like parking bays

The modern router's dual radios are not one network with two spellings - they are two tools. The 2.4-gigahertz band threads walls and reaches the far bedroom at a gentle speed: its the band for the phone that roams, the smart bulb, the gate intercom. The 5-gigahertz band is faster per watt but fades through the same walls twice as quick: it is the desk's standing recommendation for anything that sits near the router and streams or works - the television, the laptop's desk, the download machine. The naming habit that makes this real: separate the two with distinct network names (or a clear band-steering setting where the router offers it), so the household can choose the band per device instead of trusting a negotiation it cannot see. And the channel tweak for crowded blocks: the 2.4 band overlaps like a car park at rush hour - the router's own settings page usually offers an 'auto' channel scan, and where it doesn't, the free analyser apps show which of the three non-overlapping channels the neighbours have occupied; ten minutes, and the evening's stutter sometimes dies without a single naira leaving the house.

The one-diagnostic rule before buying

Stand where the device lives and read the actual number - the phone's wifi detail shows link speed, and the speed test at the router versus the speed test at the bedroom separate 'the line is slow' from 'the house eats it'. That distinction decides which purchase is even on the table: a slow line needs this desk's plan-reading and provider conversation, not a box; a fast line eaten by the house is placement (this page), then one of the two honest hardware answers - a better single router for a flat the current one barely covers, or the extender/second-router decision the guide already on the shelf walks through. Re-run the test after the placement hour, on purpose: the number that moved is proof, and the number that didn't is your shopping list.

The verdict, as a rule

Shelf height, house centre, off the block pillars, antennas up, bands split by device, channel scanned - the hour that pays before the till opens. The router is a lamp; most dead zones are just a lamp in a cupboard, and this desk signs the sentence every extender review should open with: take it out of the cupboard first.