Kill Wi-Fi dead spots using mesh networking router kits

FOX11, Los Angeles - Wi-Fi dead spots… everyone will experience them at one point. You'll notice them when you're in one part of your home or apartment, playing a YouTube video for example, and the video stops playing half-way through. It just stops and you're waiting for the little bar at the bottom of the screen to fill up and the video to start playing again. Maybe you're experiencing a similar issue when streaming your favorite TV show like Game of Thrones. Maybe you have young gamers in your home and they're complaining that their games are "lagging." That means the game play is stuttering and not playing at full speed, in real-time. There's a simple solution to these problems. They're called "mesh network routers."

First, let's tackle the main question: Why are there dead spots? Much like the solution to the problem the answer to this question is actually an easy one. You could be experiencing Wi-Fi dead spots due to the construction materials used to build your home or apartment. It could be that your older router or internet gateway is too far from where you're trying to get a signal. Ultimately your Wi-Fi router is just a "radio" and other "radio frequency" devices in your home can interfere with its operation. Things like microwaves, cordless phones (yes, some people still have them), and now smart appliances and devices like your Amazon Alexa or Google Home voice assistants are fighting for bandwidth. With those smart devices, thermostats, LED lights and more joining the fray, you could have dozens of devices all attached to your Wi-Fi at one time and that could be taxing your aging router. That's where a mesh network router kit comes in.

Juan Carlos Bagnell shows you the TP Link Deco M9 Plus and the Linksys Velop, which both offer two and three pack mesh network kits to help you kill dead spots and tame the wireless radio traffic in your home. They even help you corral those smart devices onto one app and network to make them more manageable. Watch the video to see exactly what you can do with mesh network routers.

Here's a quick tip to help you maximize your use:

When you set up your Wi-Fi and are connecting devices to your network, place all of your secondary devices on the 2.4ghz network. That's alexa, any smart appliances like light switches or thermostats. They don't need all the bandwidth that your smart tvs and gaming devices do.