Help planning Wi-Fi AP placement 

Wi-Fi Design & Planning
1

Hey guys, I’m trying to figure out the best way to set up Wi-Fi in my house and need some advice.

Here’s a rough floor plan.

rough_floor_plan
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The router will probably be somewhere near the entrance/central hallway, but I’m not sure that’s really the best location.

Do I need one powerful router or should I plan for multiple access points?

How do I determine where to place them before buying everything I need?

Should I place access points in the hallway, in rooms, or closer to where people actually use Wi-Fi?

Any advice would be appreciated.

2

Funny guy lol. This kinda looks like you want random people on forums to design your whole network for free based on a hand-drawn floor plan. Nobody can tell you the perfect AP placement from this alone. Wall materials matter. Ceiling height matters. Where the modem comes in matters. What devices you use matters. Even furniture can mess with signal. Could someone guess? Sure. Would it be accurate? Not really.

3

Honestly, if you want it done properly, talk to a network installer or wireless engineer.

4

If you want to plan it yourself, use software made for Wi-Fi planning instead of guessing from the drawing. NetSpot is honestly great for this kind of thing. You can load your floor plan, set the scale, draw walls, choose wall materials, and then test different router/AP placements virtually. You can try one AP, two APs, different models, different bands, even antenna direction depending on the device. That’s the part people usually miss: the floor plan alone isn’t enough. Construction materials are huge. I’d model it first, then buy the hardware.

5

Yeah, the answer is probably either:

  • one centrally placed AP if the walls are friendly,

  • or two wired APs if the walls are heavy / the house is wide.

  • The worst option is buying 3 mesh nodes, placing them randomly, and then wondering why roaming is weird or speeds are all over the place. NetSpot, Ekahau, UniFi Design Center, whatever tool you like — just use something instead of guessing.

6

Thanks, I didn’t realize wall materials mattered that much. I was hoping there was some simple rule like “one AP per X square feet”.