Dreadful news, girlies: Experts say houseplants might be slowing our WiFi down by 40 per cent

I can’t imagine my silly little bedroom without my silly little houseplants. But I also can’t imagine my silly little bedroom with nightly frustrations of WiFi speed dropping and me trying to watch the latest MAFS or play Fortnite with a considerable amount of lag. Personally, extra annoying for me right now because I’ve moved into a listed building where it’s physically impossible for us to get fibre broadband. Brilliant. Obviously, because of this I’ve been hunting high and low for any little tips and tricks I can do to make my connection better when I came across this warning from experts off new research that claims houseplants might be slowing down WiFi by 40 per cent. Great!

Here are some tricks and tips though to keep the plants whilst keeping the speed up.

Here’s what the experiment found

Broadband Genie conducted a WiFi speed experiment and found that wifi routers kept away from houseplants were seeing an increased speed of up to 36 per cent. The moist soils and dense foliage of houseplants can actually absorb and deflect signals, that’s the science behind it. It’s usually only minor interference but it can depend on how big your room or flat is.

The study revealed an average download speed with router placed near plants of 84Mbps, whereas the average download speed with router placed away from plants was a much quicker 114Mbps.

Via Unsplash

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Basically don’t put your WiFi router on the same shelf or sill as any plants, and not on the same table if you’ve got a plant on it. It’s also best to keep WiFi routers higher than just on the floor because the signal travels better downwards than it does up.

Broadband expert Peter Ames said: “We were shocked to discover just how much of a difference it can make simply moving your router away from your houseplant collection. It’s long been known in tech circles that lots of houseplants can slow down broadband speeds, but it’s usually assumed this effect is minimal if measurable at all.

“The fact that we were able to increase our broadband speed by almost 40 per cent just by moving our router away from our houseplants was a surprise even to us! The takeaway here is clear: your internet and your houseplants can coexist peacefully, but be sure to give both enough space to avoid interference and lag.

“Take stock of where your plants are and where your router is currently placed, and do what you can to ensure your router has a clear path to where your internet is most used, with no houseplants blocking your WiFi signal.”

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Featured image via Unsplash.