Topic: Am I really going to have to get a signal booster JUST for my Switch?

So I just got Splatoon 2 as an early birthday present, put it in, get the prompt for an update, and was immediately reminded why I haven't touched my Switch in months. Because the modem is upstairs at one end of the house and I'm at the other end in the basement it refuses to connect (yet my 3DS, who's tech is nearly a decade older than the Switch's, can connect anywhere in the house no problem, and they want us to PAY for this soon for crying out loud).

And before you ask, I've tried nearly everything. Changed the settings to every possible recommendation from online and personal friend advice, my parents upgraded to a better modem at least twice, and I even attempted several times to make my basement desktop a hotspot for the Switch to share but nothing works. The only realistic option left in my eyes is to buy a freaking signal booster just because this thing's connection is that abysmally awful.

Your router should be in a central location in the house. The modem has nothing to do with it, so I’ll assume you meant router. What exactly have you tried in settings?

That's a lame response.

@Snagrio since you gave no router specs how would you expect anyone to help here?

@Snagrio I feel like this is a troll post by yet another Nintendo hater. But if it's actually not, I would wonder if your Switch in specific is damaged or defective. If you happen to know someone else with a Switch, try testing their unit. The Switch's range is a bit lower, but you do say your router is on a different floor and on the other side of your house. The 3DS's range was pushed to an extreme to take advantage to streetpass. Ordinarily most devices do not need that much range. Especially in a home where the router is properly located in a central location.

As someone who used to lurk on networking forums giving advice about how people should setup their WiFi? I can tell you now that's probably the best advice someone can give for improving WiFi performance. You can spend a LOT of money on high bandwidth routers, convoluted mesh/extender setups and high end network cards. These companies really want you to throw money at the problem. But when push comes to shove range is pretty much always the issue.

Reduce the distance between your access point and your device. If the area is too large for a single access point to cover adequately? Get a second access point and place it in a position that will reduce the distance between it and your devices. Ideally wired directly into your network as opposed to a repeater. 20m of Cat5e/Cat6 and a second AP is far cheaper and more effective than a new router with impressive theoretical performance

Nintendo isn't responsible for your crappy WiFi, their subscription has nothing to do with this. With that said your 3DS was 802.11g and therefore only ran on the 2.4Ghz band. The Switch is 802.11ac and so can therefore run either the 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz band. 5Ghz is faster but has a limited range, that might be why the Switch is performing worse. If you have a dual-band router check what radio you are trying to connect to, try to force it to connect to the 2.4Ghz radio.

You could try those lan sockets that connect the internet via Ethernet using the houses electrics. Probably about 15 quid for a pair.

Or you could attempt a hard wire and run and really long cable through the house. Effort but if it's your base of operations it's probably worth it in the long run.

I'd tend to agree. Everything I've read about setting up a wifi router said to locate it in a centralized area. "2nd floor opposite side of the house" is not a centralized location. Especially if you want to use your Switch in the basement. And as mentioned, using your 3DS as a baseline for wifi range is kind of silly. The 3DS has a larger then normal wifi range due to Streetpass.As such the simplest solution to your problem is to acknowledge that the wifi reception range is going to be lower then a 3DS (most things will have smaller reception range then a 3DS), and reposition your router so that it's in the center of the area you intend to be connecting to the internet within.

EDIT: Note this doesn't mean "center of the room in the basement", but "center of the ENTIRE area you use to connect devices to the internet". This may mean placing the router on the first floor.

Switch's wifi is picky. I would avoid the 2.4GHz band with it at all costs. It will disconnect often and seem to suffer worse range than 5GHz even though that should never happen. IMO the Switch's antenna is very sensitive to interference, possibly it's own internal interference, or maybe it just picks up every strange beam in existence. Even though 5GHz is traditionally thought of has worse range, when it comes to Switch, I would assume it supports 5GHz only (some newer designer routers don't even let you broadcast 2.4GHz SSIDs anymore, using the 2.4GHz radio only for AC support.) I've found that on 2.4GHz I barely can leave the room and keep signal and was getting disconnects often. On 5GHz I can go outside and it's fine even for Splatoon. play.

So first things first: Make sure you're connecting your switch to the 5GHz band of your router, ignore the 2.4 band. If you can't see the 5GHz band of the router (the correct SSID) on the Switch in your location, that means you're out of its range. You're back to "move the Switch closer" or "move the router."

Now, if your router doesn't support 5GHz, you really are going to have to look for a newer one that does. You can set up multiple access points on the network, or you can set up a bridge/repeater so that a second router can extend the range of your wifi network (a good router will have better antennas to pick up a weaker signal from the first router than a portable device has.)

Personally I haven't found on 5GHz Switch is much worse than my flagship phone with range (speed's another issue.) On 2.4Ghz it's awful though. Everything interferes with it. Not really something to blame Switch for. It's a new device and the industry mood right now is that "2.4GHz is legacy for supporting old hardware."

@Snagrio You're definitely right. The Switch's WiFi hardware IS abnormally worse than other devices and definitely has worse WiFi range in my experience. It has 0-1 bars and has lots of disconnects if I play in the basement with my router on the second floor, while all my other devices — including my Wii U — get two bars in the basement. If that's not a Switch-specific problem, I don't know what is.

I fixed my issue by moving my router to the basement, where I play my Switch in docked mode. See if you could move your router to the first floor or to the basement. Even if the router is in the basement, other devices should have no problem connecting to the router even if the devices are on the second floor, as they have normal WiFi that can actually connect.

I found though that the Switch can connect through two floors if the router is very close to or basically directly underneath the Switch's position. In other words, if the router is directly underneath the Switch (if the Switch is on the second floor and the router is in the basement), the Switch would be able to connect only in that room on the second floor. That's how I managed to play online in portable mode in my room, but otherwise be able to play properly in the basement.

Also, as @NEStalgia suggested, you need to connect to a 5ghz network. With the 5ghz network, the Switch's range is still pretty bad relative to other devices but nowhere near as bad as the Switch on a 2.4ghz network (the Switch couldn't even connect one floor down on a 2.4 ghz network).

If moving the router or connecting to a 5ghz network isn't possible for you, you would probably have to invest in a powerline adapter or Wifi extender. Both are worth trying to see if they can improve the signal for your Switch. NOTE that each one excels in a different scenario than the other, so it's worth trying out both of them cause one may not work properly for your house but the other one would work properly.

It's definitely frustrating that the Switch's WiFi is inexcusably worse than other devices' WiFi, but there isn't much you can do besides just accepting it and moving the router or spending the $40 or so to get a power line adapter or a Wifi extender. It's not worth it to miss out on the Switch online games, especially Splatoon 2, which like the original is amazingly fun.

Wow, just wow. I simply vent frustration over connection issues and I get accused of being a troll and a Nintendo "hater." No wonder I stopped regularly visiting this site years ago.

@Snagrio skywake gave you your answer. I had issues too, they are now solved.

And to further explain: moving either the Switch or the router (especially the router) isn't that simple for my situation. The whole point of having the Switch in the basement is so I can have it in my own space and not upstairs (and even then there's little room to put it anywhere with how full both main floor TVs are).

Moving the router itself is even more of a no-no because it's already centered in the house, is a pain to disassemble and reassemble properly (spaghetti wires everywhere) and taking it to the basement could cause issues as my parents have home offices in 2nd floor rooms so if that messes with the connection it'll have to go right back where it was.

To be honest my switch has odd connection issues here and there, sometimes it's connected to my internet perfectly fine, other times it's laggy and has like 1 bar and I haven't moved it.

A wireless repeater or signal booster won't work properly either as I've tried this and it creates lag even worse than when its on 1 bar, if I restart the switch it almost restarts the connection up to a full connection, it's almost like the Wi-Fi chip just isn't strong at all.. at least to me.

The Switch legitimately has the worst wi-go speed and strength out of all of my devices.

But yes use 5ghz. I never have connection issues other than during Splatfests. Seems to be the host quitting at the end of a match too.

Invest in something like google wifi which is a mesh system so you get strong internet through a house

My internet would be shotty in some parts of my house now it’s strong everywhere even the back yard

Lol this thread
If I'm reading this correctly, your wireless router is at the top of your house and your switch is in the lowest level. You're connection is poor.
As suggested by many the first thing would be to move the wireless router nearer the switch to see if there is any improvement. If not, then you should look to invest in some wifi repeaters to extend the range of your wireless network from the top to the bottom.
And bear in mind wifi signals will have a hard time with walls made out of certain materials, such as brick and concrete.
Your isolated problem does not translate to a design defect with the Switch.

@Hyrule

Do you understand that ONLY the Switch have that issue ?
All the other devices have none.

So, duh there is a problem with the Switch. We are several people with the same Wifi problem.

I'd be Ok with you if all the other devices will have the same issue but it's only the Switch...

That may be so but even so the Switch is one of the few devices that can highlight how bad your WiFi actually is. It's portable so you're inevitably going to end up using it in some of the WiFi dead zones around your house. You play games on it which are just about the only thing you can do on a network that fails entirely if you disconnect for even a couple of seconds. Online video may be the easiest way to hammer your network but you can buffer video, you can't buffer controller inputs.

It's also the first mainstream portable gaming device that can run on the 5Ghz band which is overall a strength but it can mean less range and disconnects when jumping between radios. And also, unlike the 3DS or Vita, Switch games are significantly larger and more online focused. There are multiple games on the Switch which exist entirely for their online modes, the same can't really be said for the 3DS.

I'd also add that I personally haven't had any issues with the Switch's WiFi or really the WiFi of any device. This is mostly because I made a point of setting up the WiFi in my house properly. And by properly I mean 2x relatively cheap access points positioned at either end of the house. I used to not be able to browse the internet on any device in some parts of the house. With a bit of planning I don't have any dead zones at all. Stop blaming your devices for your crappy network setup, fix your network setup.

@skywake

I only play my Switch DOCKED ! So please, stop that BS with Wifi deadzones... ^^

Stop blaming my network setup for the crappy Switch wifi...