Here is the perfect location to get the best performance from your WiFi box

A mathematician determined using equations the best location to install a WiFi router in an apartment. And there is even an app for that ...

Generally, when installing the Freebox, another box or a WiFi router at home, the first criterion is not the performance, but the available space, proximity to electrical and telephone jacks (or fiber) or simply better integration in terms of aesthetics.

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Which can sometimes give rather poor results in terms of reception and throughput, even disastrous. At home for example, the Freebox is in a closet (albeit with thin doors not too tight) and if the overall performance is very good for most of my wireless devices, my iPad stubbornly refuses to pick up the WiFi when I'm not in the same room as the Box (while the iPhone is not a problem). This is also a recurring problem with my iPad since the first model (I am in the fourth).

But there would be a solution, or at least an "ideal" location, which would include to get the best performance in terms of speed of your box or WiFi router. This is not me saying this, but an eminent mathematician named Jason Cole, who comes there a few months ago to a very serious study and documented based calculation models to determine where in the his apartment router provide the best throughput.

By applying the Helmholtz equation, used to model the propagation of electromagnetic waves and their dispersion in space and time, and then applying these calculations with a plan of his apartment into account the refraction levels of walls and partitions, Jason Cole was able to accurately determine the best location to place his or router. The results are surprising in his view, as he explains in the detailed account of the experience on his blog:

It's very dense to look at but very unexpected. I would expect to see areas of "brightness" (intensive network) around the electromagnetic source, disperse with distance with maybe some funny diffraction effects. Instead we get a filmy structure with field strength filaments to tortueuse.Il course also be the "black spots" that evoke areas of poor reception when you're on a chair on a call and you change position.

So what? What is the best location?

In his experiments, Cole says that the best performances of his router are obtained when it is placed in the center of the apartment. All for it? You will say no need to type in dozens of lines of equations to find what common sense would have ever imagined. Except that Jason Cole weights the conclusions of his experiments suggesting that this result is a coincidence due to the configuration of its interior. According to the distribution of the field strength appears extremely sensitive to all parameters, whether the router position, the radiation wavelength, and the refractive index of the door.

So, in order not to let readers in the fog of math, at their request, Cole has developed a small application for Android that allows everyone to calculate precisely the best location for your router at home, from plans you can integrate it.

A remarkable work which you will find all the details here , and you will certainly feast if you are good in mathematics fiber. In my case, my eyes bled from the second equation line.