Finding Out That My WiFi Sucks
When I moved into my house in 2016 I was naive to a lot of things. One of those things was that WiFi would be good enough for all my Internet needs. The house had to be rewired and I was asked if I would like to take the opportunity to run Ethernet from room to room, or at least between floors.
"Why would I need to do that? It's just a small house!"
Fast forward to 2024 and I have various smart home devices. An unrealistic fear of house fire has led me to want some sort of system where I can be alerted to a fire alarm while away from home. The HomePod Mini can listen for smoke alarm sounds - perfect! It can serve as a HomeKit Home Hub, and I get a speaker for music. Great solution.
After powering the device on for the first time and streaming music to it over AirPlay (Airplay 1, cheers Spotify) the illusion that my WiFi setup was good enough was shattered. Music playback dropped out, stuttered, and controlling playback was an exercise in frustration with up to 30 second lags after pressing buttons on my phone.
I knew AirPlay 1 was meant to suck, so I tried Apple Music which uses Airplay 2. Better, but still poor, so of course, to troubleshoot I put the HomePod next to the router. The music stream was perfect.
Great. Warm cosy feeling of trouble-free WiFi shattered. I have an Asus AC86RT, a very good WiFi 5E router, released just before WiFi 6 was a thing. If I had waited a few months I could have chosen a WiFi 6, but I didn't think about that, so now I feel very outdated with a 2013 WiFi standard. I don't particularly want to change router now - this one is only four years old - but I'm feeling I should get on the WiFi 7 hype train when these devices become available to 'future-proof' myself, and to save myself from needing to upgrade due to hardware failure just before WiFi 8 becomes available.
Hardware aside though, my router is in an awful location. It's downstairs in an alcove. It used to have a 'window' to blast it's rays through, but that has been sealed up, so WiFi signal route isn't the best now.
The simple solution would be to get this router re-located to somewhere central on the upper floor, but running cable is going to require some creative thinking, and at the least, pulling some floorboards and carpet up to allow for the installation. I'm hoping for a kitchen renovation soon so I can use that as an opportunity to throw some cable under the floor ready for the next time the floorboards are exposed, but let this be a lesson to anyone - if you have the chance, run ethernet between floors of your home!
As for the HomePod Mini right now, well, it isn't exciting me as a speaker - a topic for another day - so the issue with playback performance might be largely irrelevant to me now, but since I denied it from connecting to the 5GHZ network, forcing it to use .4ghz, it is generally ok with Apple Music... which I have on a trial for three months... as long as I don't close any doors.