5 GHz Wi-Fi channels are farther apart and won’t interfere with each other as much. If there are too many other nearby networks interfering with your signal, try getting a router that supports 5 GHz (like a “Dual Band” router). RELATED: What's the Difference Between 2.4 and 5-Ghz Wi-Fi (and Which Should I Use)? This option may be on some sort of “Advanced Settings” page, too. Click over to the Wi-Fi settings page, locate the “Wi-Fi Channel” option, and choose your new Wi-Fi channel.
First, log into your router’s web interface in your web browser. Once you’ve found the least congested channel, changing the channel your router uses should be simple. RELATED: 10 Useful Options You Can Configure In Your Router's Web Interface
How to Change Your Router’s Wi-Fi Channel You probably wouldn’t want to go through the trouble of jailbreaking just for this, so use one of the other tools here instead. These tools moved to Cydia after Apple booted them from the official App Store.
If you jailbreak, you can install an app like WiFi Explorer or WiFiFoFum from Cydia to get this functionality on your iPhone or iPad. Apple restricts apps from accessing this Wi-Fi data directly from the hardware, so you can’t get an app like Android’s Wifi Analyzer on Apple’s App Store. This isn’t possible on iPhones and iPads. RELATED: Jailbreaking Explained: What You Need to Know About Jailbreaking iPhones and iPads Enable and use the “Wi-Fi Scanner” feature inside the app. Update: We’ve been informed you can do this with Apple’s own AirPort Utility application. The app will actually tell you which Wi-Fi channels are better for your Wi-Fi network, so you can go straight to your router’s web interface and choose the ideal one. The app will display a list of Wi-Fi channels and a star rating - the one with the most stars in the best. Tap the View menu and select Channel rating. You’ll see an overview of the wireless networks in your area and which channels they’re using.
Just install the free app from Google Play and launch it. The best way to do that is usually to access your router’s management panel. If you want to search for Wi-Fi channels on your phone instead of your PC, the easiest-to-use application we’ve found is Wifi Analyzer on Android. RELATED: How To Get a Better Wireless Signal and Reduce Wireless Network Interference In the screenshot below, channel 1 looks the least congested. Read the output of the command to see which channels are the most congested and make your decision. Open a Terminal and run the following command: The command here is installed by default on Ubuntu and other popular Linux distributions, so it’s the fastest method. Instead, you might as well just use the terminal. You could use a graphical app like Wifi Radar for this on Linux, but you’d have to install it first. The “Best 2.4 GHz Channels” and “Best 5 GHz” Channels” fields will recommend the ideal Wi-Fi channels you should be using on your router.
Select the Wi-Fi Scan tab and click Scan Now. Instead, click the Window menu and select Utilities. To access it, hold the Option key and click the Wi-Fi icon on the menu bar at the top of your screen. Here, we can see that channel 6 looks a bit cluttered - we might want to switch to channel 1 instead.īelieve it or not, macOS actually has this feature integrated. Launch the tool, locate the Channel header, and click it to sort by Wi-Fi channel. We liked NIrSoft’s WifiInfoView instead - its simple interface does the job and it doesn’t need any installation. There’s plenty else to be gleaned from Wireless Diagnostics 2, but much of it veers toward the technical side.Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector is very powerful, but it’s a bit overkill for this. Channel selection tends to be more of an issue with 2.4GHz networks, which have far fewer channels than 5GHz, and many of which overlap in terms of which parts of the wireless spectrum they actually use.Ĭhanging your Wi-Fi channel varies depending on routers, but it’s generally pretty straightforward you may need to consult your documentation. This will open up a window with a detailed amount of information about all the Wi-Fi networks in your vicinity, along with suggestions for the best 2.4GHz and 5GHz channels.