I constructed a fortress of foil and trapped my Wi-Fi router inside (here is the way it went)

I grew up “borrowing” all kinds of issues from the kitchen for my childhood arts and crafts — naked paper towel rolls, empty cereal containers, and (to my dad and mom’ dismay) yards upon yards of aluminum foil. I might bend and mildew the sheets into makeshift bowls and faux steel partitions. That artful child could be overjoyed to know she’d nonetheless be bending foil within the kitchen years later — solely this time, as an actual a part of her job.

A number of weeks in the past, I conducted an experiment to see if placing aluminum foil behind my Wi-Firouter might enhance the sign all through my condo. What began as a considerably goofy thought ended up turning fairly a couple of heads — and the outcomes of the experiment raised extra eyebrows than simply mine: it truly labored. Nicely, form of.

Now I am again, armed with extra aluminum and a brand new idea to check. What occurs if I cowl my router in foil? Might I truly foil my Wi-Fi sign? Pun completely supposed. This is the way it went.

Does protecting your router with aluminum foil block Wi-Fi?

Again to the lab

Like my original experiment, I examined my regular Wi-Fi sign with the NetSpot app, a fundamental Wi-Fi administration and evaluation instrument. Afterward, I coated my router with an aluminum foil-lined body after which examined the power of the sign. My aim was to in the end create a selfmade Faraday cage, which is a sealed enclosure manufactured from steel or one other conductive materials that blocks electromagnetic fields from coming into or escaping.

The shortage of pizzazz in my final experiment pushed me to get a little bit extra artistic this time — at the least within the aesthetics division. So, I constructed my router its very personal one-bed, no-bath tiny residence out of cardboard, aluminum foil, and a dream.

I ran two exams: one with out the aluminum home, and one with it. Each had been performed from the very same spot utilizing my iPhone 16 Professional, and the outcomes had been as follows:

Pocket-lint / NetSpot

What these numbers imply

And the way effectively my aluminum ‘Faraday cage’ labored

There are three numbers current on this take a look at, in addition to my authentic experiment: Mbps Obtain, Mbps Add, and Ping. This is what they imply:

Mbps Obtain (505.5Mbps and 232.3Mbps) is the obtain pace, or how briskly information involves your gadgets (like downloading a PDF, streaming movies, and many others.). My pace dropped by greater than half after I enclosed it within the aluminum housing, which was one of many two drastic variations I noticed on this experiment. It is possible as a result of the foil was efficiently blocking the Wi-Fi power, even when solely partially. Because of this, much less bandwidth was out there.

Mbps Add (23.2Mbps and 23.7Mbps) is the add pace, or how briskly information goes from you (like sending an electronic mail, posting to Instagram, and many others.). With solely 0.5Mbps between the 2 trials, there was little to no distinction right here in any respect. It truly even ticked upwards, however we will safely attribute that to common testing noise. I’ve examined the power of my sign exterior these enjoyable aluminum foil experiments, and my Mbps Uploads usually vary from round 22-25Mbps every day. So, it is possible that this measurement relies upon extra on my ISP’s finish than the sort of home my router lives in.

Ping (36 ms and 60 ms) is the response time, or how lengthy information takes to go to a server and again. In contrast to Mbps Obtain and Mbps Add, you truly need the Ping time to be decrease. After I added the aluminum foil housing, my latency elevated by roughly 67%, which made my connection considerably laggier. Such a drastic change provides me purpose to consider that the aluminum foil cage made my machine work tougher to keep up its hyperlink, which might have launched the delay.

Total, the ~50% hit my sign took to Obtain pace was the clearest indicator that the aluminum foil created a makeshift Faraday cage round my router. The ~67% ping enhance was the second trace, as a result of the response time leaping that a lot could not be as a result of my router was distracted by the decor of its new home. The shortage of great change to my add time can probably be attributed to my Web Service Supplier, and I do not significantly have any bones to select with Spectrum at my present speeds, aluminum current or not.

What’s a Faraday cage?

And why my DIY experiment had flaws

A Faraday cage is a construction manufactured from steel or one other conductive materials that blocks electrical fields and electromagnetic waves. Wi-Fi, radio indicators, and even some sorts of lighting are sorts of electromagnetic waves, so they can not go by a Faraday cage. It is named after Michael Faraday — the chemist and physicist who built the first one in 1836.

Faraday found that when waves encounter {an electrical} conductive floor, they induce currents within the steel that create their very own electromagnetic area — which cancel out incoming waves. So, no exterior indicators can discover their approach contained in the cage. Principally, it is electromagnetic insulation.

So, did I create an precise Faraday cage with my aluminum foil? No, as a result of Faraday cages solely work if the cage is totally steady (no sizable gaps) and the indicators blocked are proportional to the wavelength. For instance, microwaves have a mesh display within the door, which acts as a Faraday cage and prevents electromagnetic radiation from spilling into your kitchen. The mesh holes are deliberately smaller than the microwave’s electromagnetic wavelength, which is around 12cm. Subsequently, the indicators do not escape.

So, sure, I did my greatest to fully enclose my router in aluminum foil, however with out correct tools or electrical tape, there was no confirming if each single seam was sealed — particularly when it got here to the opening within the again I made for the cables to come back in. Plus, even full-blown cages do not truly block every part except they’re grounded. The 4 or 5 layers of aluminum foil felt fairly insulating to me, however there’s all the time an opportunity that in my artful development I missed a spot or two. Guess I will need to issue that in after I cost my router lease for its aluminum tiny-home.