Wifi Analyzer
When BBC iplayer began to stutter, Will Stapley used this tool to diagnose an intermittent network problem
Call me sceptical, but when something is marketed as ‘smart’, it makes me think the opposite. Take GE’S smart light bulbs. They are so smart that resetting them demands a switch-on, switch-off routine that’s enough to send anyone loopy (watch the entire, jaw-dropping process at www.snipca.com/32629). And don’t even get me started on smart watches that need charging every few days.
But when it comes to the smart channel feature on routers, I usually advise friends and family to leave it switched on. This feature shifts your network to a different wireless channel if a nearby network is causing interference. Most routers have it, and it’s usually switched on by default. However, as I recently discovered, it’s not quite as smart as I first thought.
I use an old laptop as a portable media player – predominantly for watching BBC iplayer. A few months back, the video began to stutter intermittently, sometimes just for a few minutes, occasionally for up to an hour. I initially put it down to the laptop being too far from my router and only supporting 2.4GHZ Wi-fi. It was only when I turned to Wifi Analyzer (free from www.snipca.com/32631) that I discovered the real reason.
I often use Wifi Analyzer to view wireless signal strengths across my home, particularly when it comes to finding the best spot for my router.
I do this by selecting the Analyze tab (top left), Graph mode (bottom right), then keeping an eye on the signal level as I move between rooms (see screenshot above). The higher the dbm (decibelmilliwatts), the stronger the signal (bear in mind these figures are minus numbers, so -10dbm indicates a stronger signal than -90dbm, for example).
When iplayer started playing up, however, I switched from Graph mode to Channels, which displays all nearby wireless networks. This showed my network, BTHUB5-RQHK, was using the same channel as one called Androidap5 – presumably a temporary mobile hotspot being broadcast by a neighbour’s Android phone. Since the rival network was never on for long, the smart channel feature on my router didn’t detect it and therefore saw no reason to move me to a new channel.
So I logged into my router, turned off the smart channel feature for my 2.4GHZ network and changed the channel myself (Wifi Analyzer recommends the best channel to switch to, in this case channel 11 - see screenshot left). And for now at least, iplayer is running smoothly again.
So while I still recommend you let your router choose which wireless channel is best, if you experience slow speeds it’s worth firing up Wifi Analyzer to make sure an occasional network isn’t the cause.