Why using aluminum foil in your router is not a good idea for improving your Wi-Fi signal. They told you a lie.
It is common to find homemade hacks on social media and other platforms that claim to significantly improve technology.
One of the most common of these tricks is to use aluminum foil to improve a home router's Wi-Fi signal by covering the antennas or even wrapping an aluminum sleeve around them.
Although there is a scientific basis for this trick, the truth is that under normal circumstances, it may negatively affect the router's performance due to overheating or signal interruption.
As of the date of writing this article, almost all media outlets cite a 2017 study published by Dartmouth College (USA) as authoritative, as the study conducted the same test, albeit in a highly controlled environment.
This experience may differ significantly from the reality faced by the average user, as it used 3D printing to route the router's Wi-Fi signal.
This is what happens when aluminum foil is placed near the router or around its antennas.
In this experiment, the team realized from the beginning that professional Wi-Fi signal boosting solutions are expensive and not available to everyone.
To test whether aluminum foil strengthens or redirects the signal, they tried to simulate a typical home environment, with many walls and obstacles hindering optimal Wi-Fi signal strength throughout the house.
In this way, they manufactured a part using 3D printing to place near the router, which immediately improved the direction of the waves, without incurring significant costs.
Since then, many alleged tricks have emerged to make Wi-Fi available practically everywhere in the house, although these tricks are closer to myths and may even cause serious damage to the router's components.
As with any electronic device, a router needs to maintain a suitable temperature to function properly, so wrapping it in aluminum foil, a heat-insulating material, is a very bad idea.
However, the most common method is simply to wrap the router's antennas—something many people don't have—in aluminum foil, thinking that this will direct the signals to areas with weaker coverage.
Although this home method may seem tempting, the truth is that household aluminum foil does not mimic the real-world usage conditions of the aforementioned study; in fact, it may have the opposite effect.
Aluminum foil causes signals to bounce back, so encasing antennas in aluminum may further degrade the connection; the same thing happens when you create a homemade Faraday cage.
In short, if you want to increase the strength of the Wi-Fi signal in your home, the best thing to do is to check your router settings, identify the weakest areas, and choose a repeater, because it will never let you down.