Home coverage guide
Wi-Fi Mesh: what it is and how to improve internet signal throughout your home?
Does your Wi-Fi work well near the router but get weak in the bedroom or living room? Learn how a mesh network can help.
Coverage simulation
How the signal moves through the home.
As distance and obstacles increase, Wi-Fi behavior changes with the architecture of your network.
Living room
Modem location
Direct view of the antenna. Full bandwidth.
Hallway
1 masonry wall
Attenuation of the 5 GHz frequency by physical barriers.
Bedroom
2 walls away
The device moves to 2.4 GHz to keep its range.
Office
Back of the house
Instability zone with frequent packet retransmissions.
On traditional routers, a single radio source has to cross walls and slabs. The 5 GHz frequency loses power quickly, forcing the device to operate on slower frequencies.
Symptom diagnosis
Signs that the bottleneck is physical.
Select the most common situation in your routine to understand the signal’s technical behavior.
Video calls freeze when you move around the house
Standalone routers do not manage node handoff. Your device tries to hold the weak signal from the room you left until the packet flow is lost completely.
The synchronized mesh roams between nodes in milliseconds without interrupting audio or video.
Technical background
What a mesh system does not solve.
If the internet link delivered by your provider shows instability, packet loss or less speed than contracted at the modem port, extending the coverage area will not fix the source of the problem.
Mesh systems improve radio distribution between rooms, but they faithfully reproduce the conditions of the connection they receive at the main entry point.
Structural comparison
Three approaches to wireless coverage.
Understand the architectural differences between traditional routers, plug-in extenders and mesh systems.
| Characteristics | Conventional router | Plug-in extender | Mesh system |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network architecture | Single central point | Cascaded extender | Distributed mesh of multiple nodes |
| Identifier (SSID) | Single centralized network | Creates a separate secondary network | Single, transparent network for the whole home |
| Moving between rooms (roaming) | None; keeps the weak connection | Manual; you must switch connections in settings | Automatic via 802.11k, 802.11v and 802.11r protocols |
| Effective bandwidth | Progressive degradation with distance | Up to 50% reduction from channel sharing (half-duplex) | Preserves up to 95% of speed on dedicated channels |
| Recommended scenario | Compact homes up to 50 m² | Connecting static peripheral devices | Large homes, multiple floors and home office |
Two-step diagnosis
Isolate the cause of slowness.
Take one measurement near the modem and another in the distant room to compare the signal loss.
Reference measurement
Stand one meter from your provider’s modem to capture the nominal capacity reaching your home.
Attenuation measurement
Repeat the test in the unstable room to record the loss caused by walls and distance.
How to read the relationship between the two tests:
Physical signal attenuation
Your provider’s link is in good condition. The performance loss in the room comes purely from walls absorbing the signal. A mesh network or a wired access point solves this bottleneck.
Linka for iOS
More than speed. Clarity about your connection.
Browsers cannot analyze radio channels or the physical distance to your antenna. The native iPhone app was built to map network behavior in each room.
Local history by room
Label measurements like "Living room" and "Bedroom" to follow the history on your device over time.
Clear diagnoses with Assist
Understand the factors that affect latency and stability in plain language, without networking jargon.
Privacy at the core
No sign-up, no account creation and no ads. Your tests stay on your iPhone.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions.
A plug-in extender receives an already weakened signal and retransmits it by creating a second network (e.g., "_EXT"), cutting maximum speed in half. A mesh network uses smart nodes that communicate over dedicated channels, keep the same single network at high speed and switch points automatically as you walk around the house.