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Lately, everyone is in the house adapting to life with COVID-19. Your kids are in their rooms on Zoom classes, while you and your partner have converted the dining room into a spare office. You’re now used to working with video conferencing systems over large conference room presentations. Between all the meetings, calls, and classes, your network is likely to become overloaded as it attempts to handle all the streaming devices, phones, computers, and digital assistants. When this happens, you experience a slower WiFi connection and dead spots, which only interrupts everyone’s workflow, heightening tensions in the household.
However, improving your home network is more cost-effective and easier than ever. This can help your productivity flow, granting you extra time to relax in the evenings. Here are a few steps to optimize your experience working from home through centralized control.
First and foremost, you need to make sure your current connection to the Internet is strong enough to handle your family’s workload. There’s a variety of free speed test tools online that measure your current connection; we suggest utilizing FCC guidelines that suggest your ideal connection based on your online usage. For optimal results, aim for a connection speed that’s a bit higher than what you believe you need at the moment, at least 25Mbps or more. Your coworkers and your family will thank you in the future.
Now that you’ve established a solid Internet connection, you’ll want to optimize that speed. If you often have to reboot your router or notice buffering on streaming devices, then it’s likely time for an upgrade. If your router is over four or five years old, that’s another good sign it’s time for a change. Newer routers support the current WiFi standards (WiFi 6) to grant you high speeds no matter how many users are online simultaneously. Now all four members of the family can sit in their Zoom meetings and classes without experiencing lagging audio or a pixelated visual.
With WiFi 6, you can harness swifter methods of connection to the Internet. When you’ve replaced your router, double-check all your connected devices to make necessary adjustments that take full advantage of your improved Internet. We recommend making the switch to the 5GHz band, which contains twice as many channels as the 2.4 GHz band, meaning less overcrowding and data transmission at higher speeds. Your devices will automatically seek out the better option and switch over to the 5GHz band too.
Your modern router should already have basic security settings enabled upon arrival. The only thing you need to do is change the name of your network and password if you want. Remember, your network name is visible to your neighbors, guests, and anyone in the nearby area, so it’s wise to keep personal information, such as your family’s surname, e.g., “Johnson Family Wifi” out of your network name. The National Institute of Standards and Technology made revisions to their password guidelines, which now include suggestions of creating memorable, simple, and long passwords utilizing phrases, lowercase letters, and typical English. Never make an easily guessable password like “password,” phone numbers, or birthdays.
Want to make sure you never lose connection during your presentation through video conferencing? Then continually check for router updates that keep your connected devices and network secure and smooth. Although most routers automatically check updates for improvements in performance and security, you don’t want to somehow miss a critical update because it involved user permission. By logging into your router’s administration page, you can manually enable new updates by checking on the current ones. These updates can keep your Wifi router safe from hackers, granting you peace of mind, especially if your job involves sensitive data or products.
Your router isn’t the only thing that needs consistent updates; your connected devices require regular updates too. When you ensure you regularly update your home’s laptops, desktops, phones, and voice assistants, you’ll always have an exciting new feature to anticipate! Because of Coronavirus, the top emerging technology has been video conferencing. Remote workers need to communicate effectively with clients and colleagues, and body language or facial expressions can guarantee a successful presentation or pitch.
As every member of the family utilizes video conferencing to collaborate with peers in the new workday, you shouldn’t limit your potential with slow Internet speeds. By implementing our suggestions into your home network, you can optimize your productivity to leave your family with more time left in the day to relax after a hard day’s work. If you’re ready to streamline your at-home workdays, contact our team of certified professionals at SounDesign today to get started!