Scientists have discovered a simple, low-cost method for boosting the strength of Wi-Fi signals inside your home, and it relies on a household staple almost everybody keeps on hand in their kitchen: aluminium foil.
By using a reflector shield of aluminium foil as a 'virtual wall' positioned behind your Wi-Fi router, the team says it's possible to help shape the flow of indoor wireless signals, potentially giving your home network greater coverage and speeds.
"Through this single solution, we address a number of challenges that plague wireless users," says computer scientist Xia Zhou from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
"Not only do we strengthen wireless signals, we make those same signals more secure."
Inspired by a DIY hack where people use aluminium soft-drink cans to try to boost their Wi-Fi, the researchers wanted to investigate if there was a way of using the same idea to more optimally direct wireless signals from a router.
While there's definitely anecdotal evidence that using the aluminium from an empty drink can can help boost your Wi-Fi, the shortcoming of the technique is that you end up with a curved, generic panel as your reflector.
Since the layout of everybody's home is different, just putting up a can shaped like a kind of radar dish and hoping for the best isn't very scientific - it doesn't give you much control over where the aluminium directs the wireless signals.
To improve upon the idea, Zhou's team came up with what it calls WiPrint: a system that analyses the internal layout of your home, mapping portions of it where you'd like to see your Wi-Fi signal boosted, along with specifying areas where you don't really need a strong connection.
With those inputs, WiPrint's algorithm is able to calculate the optimised shape for a signal reflector to place beside your Wi-Fi router, which can then be 3D-printed in plastic, and covered in aluminium foil. Read further......
from: Ibhaobe Samson Eromosele
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