Knowing your Wi-Fi speed is harder than it should be. That’s partly because if you Google “wi-fi test” you’ll end up being directed to websites and apps that don’t do what they promise.
Instead, they tell you your broadband speed, which isn’t the question you’re trying to answer.
Technically, these tests make use your Wi-Fi as part of connecting to the Internet, but they only report the speed of your Internet connection and do not tell you the speed of your home Wi-Fi. The numbers you see are probably your broadband’s download and upload speeds.
If your Wi-Fi is slower than your broadband, the results are your Wi-Fi speed. But in most cases broadband is slower and is the limiting factor.
Luckily, there are ways to test Wi-Fi speed, and that’s why you’re here of course.
Speed testing is useful for several reasons:
- It tells you the Wi-Fi speed on a particular device
- It shows you the speed of your Wi-Fi in various places in your home so you can identify problems and fix them
- It can tell you whether or not Wi-Fi is the cause of a slow or not working internet connection
How to Test Wi-Fi Speed with an App
As mentioned, there are many apps that claim to test Wi-Fi speed. We haven’t tested them all, but we have tried many that only told us our broadband speed. If you want to know those numbers, here’s how to check your internet speed.
Testing your Wi-Fi speed means finding out how fast is the connection speed between your router and your phone, or whatever device you are using to run the test.
A free Android app that can do this is Zoltan Pallagi’s WiFi Speed Test. It will also test your internet speed if you wish. Unfortunately, it’s only available for Android, not iOS. If you have an iPhone, install Wi-Fi SweetSpots which works the same way and also lets you see the average speed over time.
Before starting the test, make sure your phone is connected to the Wi-Fi network you want to test. It might seem obvious, but you might want to test the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks if your router broadcasts them as separate networks.
And in case you didn’t know, the fastest speeds are available on 5GHz, but if you’re far enough away from your router, you’ll find that 2.4GHz will give you a more reliable and usable connection.
Keep in mind that your phone may be the limiting factor when running the test, as it depends on its Wi-Fi specifications. Ideally, your phone should match or exceed the speed your router is capable of, otherwise you will reach your phone’s limit and you still won’t know how fast your Wi-Fi is.
On an Android phone, launch the WiFi Speed Test app and swipe right to the test screen. You should see two toggle switches down: WiFi test and Internet test.
Disable the Internet test, then press the START button at the top. The test takes 10 seconds and you will see the “speedo” change as the test progresses.
You can repeat the test in different rooms or at different distances from your router to compare speeds. The results are saved so you can view them later under the TEST RESULTS tab.
It’s not the prettiest app, but it gets the job done.
This app will also tell you another useful thing: the Wi-Fi signal strength at any location in your home. Just walk around and see the signal strength change. Here’s what you need to know about dBm numbers in order to understand what they mean, as well as how to check signal strength on an iPhone.
How fast should my Wi-Fi be?
It might take a bit of research. The “AX1800” number you might see on your router box is not the answer. Whatever number you see is the combined total (in Mbps – megabits per second) of the various frequencies, but it’s not the number you’d get in the real world. It’s really designed to help you compare the performance of one router to another, but in truth, it’s not very helpful.
What you need to know is the speed it offers on each band – 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and – if it supports it – 6 GHz.
Even these numbers are theoretical maximums and you should expect lower speeds in the real world once things like walls, floors, doors and windows and interference from other devices are taken into account.
Plus, speeds drop the further you get from your router.
However, as long as the speed you see when you test your Wi-Fi is higher than the speed of your internet connection, your Wi-Fi will be fine. If it’s slower than your broadband in any room, or maybe in the backyard, you might want to consider upgrading your router or buying a mesh Wi-Fi system to fix this. problem.
Streaming HD video from the Internet usually requires a minimum around 2.5 Mbps, and that drops to around 40 Mbps for UHD (4K). For more details, see What are good upload and download speeds?
Even old-school 802.11n Wi-Fi should be faster than 40 Mbps, and more modern 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) routers should give you around 200-600 Mbps. Remember that your speed will be limited by the slowest device, be it your phone or your router.
So even if you’re right next to your router when you run the test, which is where you’ll get the fastest speed, it will be limited if your phone only has 802.11n Wi-Fi. but that your router is newer Wi-Fi. Fi 6 device.
If you’re wondering how that compares to megabytes per second, just divide your result by 8, which converts megabits to megabytes.
How can I test Wi-Fi speed in Windows?
If you don’t have an Android phone or you specifically want to test your laptop’s Wi-Fi speed, type Control Panel in the Windows search bar.
Click on Control Panel then go to Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Change adapter settings.
Double click on the Wi-Fi connection in the list (it should be obvious which one it is) and in the window that opens you will see a field called Speed. The number next to this will fluctuate, but should be a good indicator of the connection speed to your router.
For a more accurate test, connect a second laptop or PC to your router with a network cable and copy a file from your laptop to the PC, timing how long it takes. You will need to enable sharing in order to “see” the other PC or laptop from the laptop you wish to test. It’s under Network and Sharing Center > Advanced Sharing Settings.
We usually use a 500MB video file to test, and if you want to be more scientific, rather than using Windows File Explorer to copy the file, use a command prompt and the xcopy command.
Now use the exact file size in MB and divide that by the number of seconds the file took to copy and you have your Wi-Fi speed in MB/s. Multiply that by eight to get the figure in megabits by second.
For example: 500 ÷ 24 = 20.83 MB/s. 20.83 x 8 = 166.7 MB/s.
You might also like to know how to test your laptop battery.