Wi-Fi drops in one spot only: the physics of dead corners
On that side of the bed, nothing loads. Move thirty centimeters and it's fine. This isn't your imagination, and a meter of router movement usually fixes it.
In this guide
Some weak spots are rooms. Others are chairs. If the connection dies in one specific place and recovers when you shift a little, you've found a local null, and the cause is more interesting than a wall.
Why a small spot can be dead
Radio waves bounce. The signal reaching your phone has come directly from the router and by reflection off walls, ceilings, metal furniture, mirrors and appliances. Those copies arrive slightly out of step with each other.
- Where they arrive in step, they add up and the signal is strong.
- Where they arrive out of step, they cancel and the signal collapses.
The distance between a strong point and a weak one can be as small as a few centimeters, because it depends on the wavelength: roughly twelve centimeters at 2.4 GHz, and about half that at 5 GHz.
That's why a phone can be useless on one side of a bed and fine on the other, and why the two bands often fail in different spots in the same room.
What makes it worse
- Metal near you: bed frames, radiators, filing cabinets, a large mirror, a TV.
- Your own body, which absorbs Wi-Fi. Sitting in the same position holding the phone the same way can keep a marginal spot marginal.
- A marginal signal overall. In a strong room, cancellation still happens but the leftover signal is plenty. At the edge of coverage, it's the difference between working and not.
Fixes that take a minute
- Move the device, even slightly. A few centimeters can change everything.
- Move the router a meter, or change its height. This shifts the whole interference pattern in the house, often clearing that specific dead spot.
- Try the other band. If 5 GHz fails exactly there, 2.4 GHz may not, and the other way around. See 2.4 GHz vs 5 GHz by room.
- Remove or move the metal. A mirror or a metal shelf right behind your chair is a strong suspect.
When it's not a null
If the whole room is weak, this isn't the cause, and moving things around won't help much: that's plain coverage. See Wi-Fi weak in one room and how to find dead zones.
Find the pattern
WiFi Heatmap measures as you walk through a room, so small dead corners appear as a patch of color inside an otherwise good space. Move the router, map again, and watch the patch move with it. See how to test before and after.