Hint:  Change your Wi-Fi frequency to avoid interference with neighbors router

There are free WiFi analyzer apps on iOS and Android that scan and show nearby WiFi networks, their signal strength, and which channel they are using. With that information, you can choose a less congested WiFi channel for your location and set it on your router. However, some routers such as Nest don't allow you to manually set the WiFi channel. They claim to monitor amount of traffic on different channels and dynamically switch to a less busy channel.

Good advice + thank you

Excellent advice. Unfortunately if you have Comcast Xfinity and use their Wi-Fi router, those settings are locked down. The only way to change it, that I know of, is to do a full reset, and then the controls are unlocked for a while, but eventually they lock again. I am definitely getting interference lately, and I can't find any way to switch channels. Very annoying. Would love to hear if anybody else has found a way around it.

Often said this.  One of the best diagnostic tools is to use a Wifi analyzer on your phone or PC or Mac.  They are free and in addition to signal strength let you see who else is sharing your channels.

I don't know why this is still true in 2022 but routers set to "auto" channel selectiopn tend to pick the same channels no matter the congestion

Or get a bit higher end that automatically analyze the RF environment and pick a channel that is free. 
 

@erik_squires  auto is supposed to mean that it picks the channel with the cleanest RF, however, you are correct, lower end just somewhat randomize the channel selection

 

Often said this.  One of the best diagnostic tools is to use a Wifi analyzer on your phone or PC or Mac.  They are free and in addition to signal strength let you see who else is sharing your channels.

which is all fine and dandy to use and see what is going on around you, but what good does it do if you can’t access the modem / router to change the channel ?

Is this problem done if you hardwire?

Get off of 2.4GHz ! Use the 5GHz channels and see if you can select Ch’s other than 36 and 165 (basically whatever you have selectable in between).

Most of the time (no scanner needed), these channels aren’t used in consumer WiFi equipment and people (understandbly) don’t know any better.

And please don’t tell me that 2.4GHz penetrates more than 5GHz. That arguement is lost based on how polluted the 2.4GHz band has become. 5GHz is slowly getting to this same issue but usable.

I’ve been doing this WiFi stuff professionally for the last 8 years cause “I’m Only In It For The Money”

cheers,

joe

More information on Comcast routers:

Settings for Comcast routers

For additional details, please search on ‘change frequency in Comcast routers’ and/or call Comcast customer support. Hope this helps.

Advanced settings.

OP,

Thank you. Fortunately I have never had this problem. But a great item to have in your bag of tricks. I remember when I had the only SSID detectable in my house. Now the list is extensive.

@erik_squires  auto is supposed to mean that it picks the channel with the cleanest RF, however, you are correct, lower end just somewhat randomize the channel selection

@fredrik222  - Even the low end versions should do this and I've still never seen one do a good job.  Maybe what happens is they pick a channel on power on and then never change it.  If you are in an apartment complex your wifi environment changes often.  

Maybe the real solution is for audiphiles to buy homes on 30 acres of land?

@riley804  - That was a joke!

I did move from dense apartment complexes to modest single family home complex and the network neighborhood is completely different.  I went from 20 or more competing wifi signals to 5. 

Maybe the real solution is for audiphiles to buy homes on 30 acres of land?

In most cases, switching to wired ethernet will be cheaper. 😉

Just use airport utility to scan frequency, see what is in use and yes if you can switch to 5ghz absolutely do that.  

As other stated, wired is the way to go. If you can’t get wired Ethernet to your system’s location, there are a few options:

1. Ethernet over power (NOT Power over Ethernet). There are adapters that will send Ethernet over your electrical lines, for example:

These work well if the outlet you plug one of them into near your router is on the same phase as the one you plug in by your system (e.g. at the panel, the circuit breaker for those two circuits are both on black wires or both on red wires). If you install them on opposite phases, quality will suck because the signal has to go all the way out to the step-down transformer (e.g. on a telephone pole) outside your house to couple the different phases, and the transmission rate will suffer.

These devices also require encryption, since the signal will leak out of the house and could potentially be read by your neighbors. 

2. Since I have Gbps fiber to my home, and use it for TV as well, my RG-6 cable is free for other uses. There are MoCa adapters that you can buy to run Ethernet over RG-6, which allows popping out another ethernet port in some other part of your home. These work great, and I get Gbps performance on the RG-6 links. Here’s an example:

I really do like the MoCa adapters. They gave me a great alternative, and they run just in the house, rather than the Ethernet over powerline. This means not having to deal with setting the device's encryption keys to be different from the default, etc, so your home network isn’t scanned from outside...

@erik_squires higher end consumer, including some of the mesh ones, and enterprise grade continuously monitor the environment and switch channels as needed. 

@fredrik222 I have had high end Asus and TP Link routers. I gave up on their channel setting algorithms and set them manually when I was living in apartment complexes. Now that I’m in a more rural environment it doesn’t even matter.

I went through several instances of trying to stream videos from bed, getting bumped off, looking at the wifi analyzer to find my router was sitting on a congested channel before finally giving up on them.

Of course, for audio and video streaming where it matters Ethernet is the way to go.  Just consider your chances of lightning and surges and isolate your copper network from the outside world as needed.

Either fiber optic to Ethernet isolators or medical grade Ethernet isolators are recommended.  I do not recommend Ethernet surge protectors with ground pigtails.  Those tend to invite wire melting surges.

@erik_squires neither TP or Asus are high end brands. 
 

you need to look at the higher end of brands that play in the small to medium size business side of things to get quality RF monitoring.

or go enterprise grade with juniper, extreme, or my least favorite, Cisco. 
 

as for switches and Ethernet, never heard of medical grade Ethernet, and I have overseen network transformation projects for the largest hospital systems in the world, so that is just snake oil. 

@fredrik222 I'm in the market for a new wifi system for my 2 story moderate sized home.  What is your expert recommendation for a high end system. thanks.

@carlsbad what is your budget? If you can swing it, my personal preference is extreme networks. You can probably get away with 2 access points, depending what your are trying to cover.

I have three, one on my second floor toward the backyard, one on the lower level toward the front yard, and one in my garage. Around 2000 sq Ft townhouse with detached garage and about 40 ft from backyard door to garage. My setup covers the the curb in front of the house to a bit down the alley behind my garage.

@fredrik222

As you probably know, Ethernet is galvanically isolated by default but some cases may require a higher breakthrough voltage for patient safety. The valuable part for those of us OCD about surge protectors is they add about 4kV to the chances of having a breakthrough surge. Here is one such product from Tripp Lite ( a little over priced ) which has relevant safety and standards data. The specific standard is IEC 60601-1. Maybe it’s only needed in the EU?

https://www.tripplite.com/rj45-network-isolator-ethernet~N234MI1005

@erik_squires no hospital in the world is using this, it is 100% to fool audio hobbyists. 

I'm enjoying this discussion and trying to learn.  I looked at the Extreme Networks options and they are pricey and they seem mostly designed for wired input to each wireless access point.  Since my home was built in the 90s, it isn't wired for internet. 

I do work at a fortune 500 company with very high end equipment such as this in the wifi system, and our wifi at work is consistently less reliable than mine at home.  So I'm scratching my head.

Jerry

@fredrik222 Yeah man, that's why IECa 60601-1 exists.  Just for audiophiles. 

@Carlsbad I have no particular ax to grind. My only advice is to use a wifi monitor (free!!) to check your network neighborhood and adjust if needed. Otherwise, if you can use Ethernet for your TV and audio use it instead.

Personally I have never found a home Wifi router I trust to select a good channel in a congested environment entirely based on experience, but the alternative, measure and manually select is just not that bad. One of the funniest bits of advice I gave in a high rise to other tenants was to run a 3’ long Ethernet cable from their router to their TV instead of using Wifi. 😁 Most had their modems sitting right next to the TV and never even thought of it.

In my current home I have great Wifi with no congestion and I use either as needed. 

That’s the entirety of my advice. Did I mention they are free?

@erik_squires  you have not read the standard, so let me educate you: it is a standard for medical devices and how to protect them from spikes in electro magnetic radiation. 
 

so, there you go. You hopefully have 0 medical devices at home, but without a doubt you have 0 medical devices in your audio setup. Like I said, it is just to fool people, clearly you fell for it.

@erik_squires to put it in simpler terms, what you are talking about is like saying your TV is vegan, sure, it is true, but who cares, you don’t eat TVs. 

@erik_squires you have not read the standard, so let me educate you: it is a standard for medical devices and how to protect them from spikes in electro magnetic radiation.

I could say the same to you. Fortunately the literature is in the public domain. The reason there is a medical standard is about leakage current forming in devices which patients are connected to, not surges. I don’t think this helps my audio sound better, but there is evolving literature that says isolators are better at preventing surges inside a building. An important part of your overall surge protection strategy. I don’t let my internal Ethernet or router connect to the network provider without additional protection. That means either gas discharge, air gapped optical fiber or one of these.

In particular, dedicated Ethernet surge protection devices which shunt excess voltages to ground, seem to have a negative effect and are more likely to enable dangerous lightning induced surges.

@erik_squires you are applying a standard to something completely unrelated, like vegan TVs. 
 

lightning surges mainly come through the electrical grid, and can for sure move into your home network if you are not protecting your switches from the grid. but directly entering into your network isn’t likely unless your house is directly hit. 
 

what the standard protects against is EM surges or interference, which primarily is related to power supplies. 
 

either way, not worth my time. The one topic I know more than anyone on this forum is networking. But people don’t listen and want to apply audio terms to networking, and that’s just not how networking works. 

If you can, run a Cat6 cable. Cheap and easy and better and solves your problem. Anything under 328 feet (100 meters) will work fine.