Where to put the router in a two-story house

In a two-story house the router usually ends up wherever the internet line enters: a corner of the living room, the hallway, sometimes the garage. That spot was chosen by whoever installed the line, not by anyone thinking about Wi-Fi on two floors.

Think in three dimensions

A router covers a rough sphere around it, squashed by walls and floors. In a two-story house you want the router near the middle of the whole volume, not just the middle of one floor. In practice that means one of two places:

• High on the ground floor, near the center of the house: top of a tall bookcase, high shelf, or wall-mounted near the ceiling.
• Low on the upper floor, above the center of the house: on a low shelf in a central room or on the landing.

Both put the router close to the floor slab from the side where it can cross it most directly, instead of at a sharp angle from a corner.

Which floor should get it?

Ask where the demanding use happens:

• Home office or gaming upstairs, TV downstairs on a cable: lean upstairs.
• Everyone lives downstairs, bedrooms only for sleeping and phones: lean downstairs, high up.
• Both floors equally busy: the middle of the stairwell area, or a router on one floor and a node on the other.

Wired devices don't care where the router is. If the TV or console downstairs can be on a cable, the router is free to move to where the wireless devices are.

Getting the router to the right spot

The line has to come in where it comes in, but the router doesn't have to stay there:

• A long Ethernet cable from the modem or fiber box to the router's new spot. Along skirting boards and up the stairs it's discreet, and it's the cheapest upgrade there is.
• An existing cable run to an upstairs room, if the house has one.
• Powerline or a mesh system if running a cable is impossible.

Don'ts for two floors

• Don't put the router in a ground-floor corner if the bedrooms are at the opposite end upstairs. That's the worst possible diagonal.
• Don't put it on the floor under the stairs: low, enclosed and surrounded by the staircase structure.
• Don't point every antenna straight up and expect the upper floor to benefit. Routers radiate mostly sideways; see why Wi-Fi is weak upstairs.

Test before you drill

Before running cables for good, try the new spot with a temporary cable across the floor for a day. WiFi Heatmap lets you map each floor separately, so you can compare both floors with the router in the old spot and in the new one. If one spot can't cover both floors, see how many mesh nodes you need, and the basics of router placement.