To WiFi users.
Do you reduce your router’s WiFi Transmit Power to the bare minimum as required by you?
- Do you just keep it at the default 100%
- Did you not know you could reduce it (until now)
- Are you not able to control “your” WiFi router because it’s the ISP provided router and they didn’t give you the password?
- Do you actually require the 100% !?
I’m an electrical engineer and into ham radio. WiFi is the last of my concerns, health-wise.
To even begin to worry about that I should first start eating healthier, work out more than once a week, and so something about all the microplastic in my brain, I guess. I’m not a medical processional, but it’s pretty far down the list. And regarding power consumption… This thing uses like 10 W, of which probably <1 is influenced by the radio power.
I just like keeping it at a minimum, thinking that maybe it would reduce noise for others. Not that it really matters to anyone. Just a “feel good” thing.
Your neighbors probably appreciate it
I’m pretty sure none of my neighbours is techy enough to even know about WiFi Analyser.
Also, it’s not congested enough yet.
Maybe if someone were to be making a 2.4 GHz receiver as an amateur project, it would matter.
I just looked at my router, it supports max transmit power settings somewhere deep in the menu, I just leave it at maximum/automatic.
I know from debugging my wifi drivers on my laptop that at least that one does adjust its power, I am guessing it works with most other modern devices as well.
I live in a 10-ish story apartment building and according to my router, channel utilisation is <20% for both 2.4 and 5 GHz. So, I guess it just works.
Do you downvote all of your comments yourself, or do you just leave them at zero and some other guy is downvoting them?
I don’t downvote my comments.
Unless someone proves my comment to be a bad one in a reply and I consider my comment to have been wrong. (That happened once on Reddit)
I remove the upvote so that when I open up my history, I don’t feel weird with everything being blue. <- also, you would probably find my second reason in a previous comment somewhere else
I wonder who downvoted that. I mean, who would disagree with people trying to be considerate?
In jerboa I end up accidentally downvoting comment when I scroll, I imagine it must be people doing the same without even realising.
Interesting. Guess I need to check out its UI.
And make sure never to copy that
Maybe someone else griefing because I downvoted some comment of theirs?
Maybe they have Voter ID turned ON, on their server
Fair point
is there any device that can be used to check the router actual transmit power. It feels like changing that setting doesn’t do anything.
Relative power? A phone and an app that shows you the received signal strength. Wifianalyzer on F-droid for example.
For me, setting it from max power to 6% (lowest value) took it from -30dBm on my couch to -50 dBm, so 20 dB difference, which is ca. 1/100. So it roughly checks out.
Keep in mind that radio waves are magic, and the higher in frequency you go, the darker the magic gets.
Absolute power is hard, especially if you are interested in average power for, like, health concerns. WiFi works in short bursts over a pretty large part of the spectrum, and you’d need calibrated equipment as well. I knew a guy who did radio wave strength mapping for like government, telcos and concerned residents, and he had a car full of tech. Simple field probes can be reasonably priced, but you need to know how to operate and interpret them.
People getting isekaied: Me gonna get that magicks!
But we have Magic at home! Also Black Magic!