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”.
I don’t need the physics behind how wifi signals work. I know how they work. A rough range without occlusion is good, people should be educated enough to realize that each wall between the device and the router, would reduce the range in that direction. If you know you have two walls in the way, and one is an exterior wall, you should know your range is reduced by probably 50%.
Its the same thing with humidifiers, using square feet as cubic feet. People might be confused what a cube is, but know what a square is. Confuse them for all I care, force them to be more educated!
I can’t believe anyone would be dumb enough to believe that wifi range is an exact cut off. No one I’ve ever met, has been that stupid, to believe that 100 feet range means it stops exactly at 101 feet.
Late reply, I don’t like reddit much.