this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Why do routers use square feet instead of feet like they used to? (alien.top)
submitted 1 year ago by VasVadum@alien.top to c/homenetworking@selfhosted.forum
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Is it really just a marketing ploy to trick people? After all, in 2.4Ghz, saying you have a range of 200 feet, sounds a lot better than 5GHz saying you have a range of 20 feet.

I remember when I was buying routers way way back, everything used to be in feet, which was great. Highly accurate, let me figure out exactly where I would need to extend the range at or place things. It was of course easier with 2.4GHz as it goes through walls easier and such.

When 5GHz became normal, they changed the ranges to square feet, which makes no sense to me. You don't fill a room with signal, it goes through walls and windows. Even if those obstetrical reduce the range, you still need to know its maximum ranges. Square feet isn't a range, its an area.

The typical range seems to be 1500 square feet, using math thats almost 22 feet. Which seems off to me because I can still access my network quite far, however that could just be the impossible to distinguish between 2.4 and 5, since the routers all have both and they share the same name and all.

Still, why switch all ranges to this useless measurement that talks about filling an area? You can't call an area "range".

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[–] Wdrussell1@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

So there are two reasons.

  1. As someone else mentioned. Marketing. Bit numbers and such
  2. It is a better representation of how wifi works. It is not a flat plane and it doesn't magically pass through, or around anything. It has limitations.

To clarify #2 a bit. Wifi works much like a flashlight does. When you shine it at objects it stops and you get a bleed around them. So if you shine at a 3 inch by 3 inch square, you will get a slightly less than 3 inch cube appearing on the wall as a shadow. (This varies with distance of course, but assume it is right on top of the cube.) Granted, wifi passes through a great number of objects too so it won't be a perfect cut out, but it will be greatly diminished on the other side of the object. All this to say, it doesn't really bend.

Now if you tell me that wifi broadcasts out to 100 feet. I am going to assume that it will go exactly 299 feet perfectly and the 300th foot will be where things flake off. No matter what objects are in the way. Because wifi doesn't work like a gas, it works more like a fluid. A gas would fill its container entirely. Which is why balloons expand. Fluids however stop and go around objects and such. Wifi is very much the same. Kinda going through, but really just mostly going around, but not bending around like a gas would.

So now if you tell me you have enough water to cover 100 square feet. I am going to assume that the area is a bit nebulous. One side might be 100 feet, one might be 90 and another could be 115. If you look at the wifi pattern for pretty much any AP this will make sense.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/MR_Overview_and_Specifications/MR44_Datasheet

Specifically the pictures under the coverage patterns. These.

You can see they are not perfect circles. You can also see that the AP's orientation affects how wifi is even broadcast.