The worst spot for a Wi-Fi router in many Australian homes is also the spot where it often ends up: jammed behind the TV in the front room, next to the NBN box, power board, soundbar, game console and a tangle of cables. It works well enough for the couch, then falls apart in the back bedroom, the study, or the alfresco area where someone is trying to take a video call.

Router placement is not magic, and it is not solved by putting the router “as high as possible” or buying the biggest-looking unit on the shelf. In brick veneer homes, double-brick apartments, older weatherboard houses, terraces, townhouses and long single-storey layouts, the practical answer is usually about reducing the number of heavy things between your devices and the router.

The Short Version

Put your main router as close as practical to the centre of the home, in the open, away from the floor, and not inside a cabinet. Aim for line-of-sight to the rooms where Wi-Fi matters most: study, lounge, bedrooms and kitchen. If the NBN connection is in a bad location, do not assume the router must stay there. An Ethernet cable, a mesh system with wired backhaul, or a relocated data point can make a bigger difference than fiddling with antennas.

What Wi-Fi Struggles With In Australian Homes

Wi-Fi is radio. It can pass through plasterboard and timber reasonably well, but it has a harder time with dense, wet, metallic or layered materials. In everyday home terms, the main problem items are:

  • Double brick and internal brick walls: common in older apartments, terraces and some suburban homes. One brick wall may be manageable; several in a row can be brutal.
  • Bathrooms and laundries: tiles, mirrors, plumbing, water and dense wet-area walls often weaken signal more than people expect.
  • Kitchens: fridges, ovens, rangehoods, splashbacks and metal appliances can create awkward dead spots.
  • Built-in cupboards and TV units: neat for cables, bad for radio.
  • Long floorplans: many Australian homes are stretched from front to back, so a router at one end leaves the far end struggling.
  • Neighbouring networks: apartments and dense townhouse complexes can be congested, especially on 2.4 GHz.

What is mostly wishful thinking: pointing router antennas at a specific bedroom like a torch, sticking foil behind the router, or restarting the router every night as a long-term fix. Those may change the result slightly, but they do not solve a bad physical location.

Living Room Placement

The living room is often where the router lands because the NBN connection, TV and entertainment gear are already there. That can be fine if the living room is central. It is less fine if it is at the front of a long house and every important room is behind two brick walls and a bathroom.

If the router must stay in the living room, place it on an open shelf or sideboard rather than inside the TV cabinet. Keep it clear of the back of the television, soundbar, console, smart speaker hub and large metal objects. A half-metre of separation can matter. Do not bury it behind books, photo frames or storage baskets just to make it disappear.

The trade-off is visual clutter versus coverage. A visible router in a boring open spot will usually beat a hidden router in a beautiful cabinet. If the home office is more important than streaming in the lounge, prioritise the office path, not the neatest TV setup.

Home Office Or Study

If one room deserves strong Wi-Fi, it is the study. Video calls, cloud files, remote desktops and uploads are less forgiving than casual browsing. If the study is near the middle of the home, placing the router there can be a good choice. If the study is at the far end, it may be better served by Ethernet, a wired mesh node or a dedicated access point rather than forcing the whole house to depend on that corner.

For renters, a long flat Ethernet cable along a skirting board may be more practical than moving wall ports. For owners, a licensed cabler can install data cabling properly. The important point is that Wi-Fi is not the only way to connect a room that matters. A wired link to the work desk often fixes the most painful problem and reduces pressure on the wireless network.

Bedrooms

Bedrooms often sit behind wardrobes, bathrooms and hallway turns, which makes them harder than their distance from the router suggests. A back bedroom in a brick home can have poor Wi-Fi even if it is only a few metres away in a straight line.

Do a simple test: stand where the router is, then imagine the path to the bedroom. If that path cuts through a bathroom, a kitchen and a brick wall, expect trouble. Moving the router from the front TV unit to the hallway side of the living area may improve bedrooms without hurting the lounge much.

Avoid putting the main router inside a bedroom wardrobe. It may be central on the floorplan, but the wardrobe contents and closed doors often dull the signal. A hallway shelf, open study nook or central sideboard is usually better.

Kitchen And Dining Areas

Kitchens are awkward. They are central in many homes, but they are full of appliances, metal and reflective surfaces. Do not place the router on top of the microwave, beside the fridge, behind a coffee machine, or against a metal splashback. The kitchen bench is also a poor long-term spot because spills, heat, clutter and power-board chaos are likely.

A dining area or nearby open shelf can be a better compromise. You still get a central location without pressing the router against the worst materials in the house. If the family uses tablets or laptops around the dining table, this placement can work well.

Hallways

A hallway is often underrated. In a long single-storey Australian home, a router or mesh node in a hallway can “see” down the spine of the house better than one hidden in a room. This is especially useful where bedrooms run off a central corridor.

The catch is power and cabling. Do not run loose cables across walkways. If the hallway has no safe power point or data point, treat it as a candidate for a mesh node, not a messy cable experiment. A hallway node works best when it has a decent signal back to the main router. If it is already in the dead zone, it will mostly repeat a weak connection.

Garages, Laundries And NBN Boxes

Many homes have the NBN equipment in a garage, laundry, cupboard or utility corner. That does not automatically mean your Wi-Fi router belongs there. These locations are often poor for wireless coverage because they sit at the edge of the home and include concrete, brick, metal shelving, tools, appliances or wet-area materials.

If your NBN box is in the garage, the best setup may be to leave the NBN equipment there and run Ethernet to a better router location inside. In some homes, the fix is as simple as using an existing data port. In others, it may need cabling work. It is not glamorous, but it is often more effective than replacing the router every couple of years.

Upstairs, Downstairs And Split-Level Homes

Wi-Fi can travel between floors, but floors are not empty air. Timber floors are easier than concrete slabs, foil insulation, thick underlay or wet areas stacked above each other. In a two-storey home, a router placed high on the ground floor near the middle can work well. A router at one far end upstairs or downstairs often leaves the opposite level weak.

For multi-storey homes, think vertically as well as horizontally. A mesh node directly above or below the main router may perform better than one placed at the far end of the house. If you can wire the floors together with Ethernet, do it. Wired backhaul is usually more reliable than asking wireless mesh nodes to punch through heavy building materials.

Apartments And Units

In apartments, distance may be less of a problem than interference and walls. Double brick, concrete and many nearby Wi-Fi networks can make a small flat feel larger to a router than it looks on paper.

Place the router in the open, away from shared walls if possible, and closer to the rooms you actually use. In a small apartment, central is good, but not if central means inside a cupboard next to the switchboard. If you have a balcony or study nook where signal drops, try shifting the router a metre or two before buying anything. Small moves can have visible effects in apartments because reflections and dense walls dominate.

Weatherboard And Older Homes

Weatherboard homes are often kinder to Wi-Fi than double brick, but they can still have problems. Long layouts, later extensions, fireplaces, foil insulation, thick timber, old wiring routes and detached outdoor areas can all affect coverage.

In these homes, central placement usually helps more than raw router power. If the house has an old front section and a newer rear extension, the join between them may be a weak point. A mesh node or access point near that transition can be more useful than placing everything at the front where the phone line or NBN entry happens to be.

How To Test Router Placement Properly

Do not judge placement from one speed test beside the router. Test where people actually use the internet.

  • Pick four or five locations: lounge, study, main bedroom, back bedroom and outdoor area if relevant.
  • Test at normal busy times, not only at 10 am when the network is quiet.
  • Check video calls or uploads as well as download speed.
  • Move the router to one realistic alternative location and test the same spots again.
  • Watch for stability, not just the biggest number on a speed test.

If one room improves and another gets worse, choose based on importance. The best placement is not always equal coverage everywhere. It is coverage that matches how the home is used.

When Placement Is Not Enough

Some homes cannot be solved by router placement alone. If you have thick brick walls, a long layout, a granny flat, a detached office, or multiple heavy wet areas between rooms, a single router may not be enough.

The sensible upgrade path is usually: better placement first, Ethernet where practical, then mesh or additional access points. Powerline adapters can work in some homes, but performance depends heavily on the electrical wiring and circuit layout, so treat them as a maybe rather than a guarantee.

Also be honest about old devices. A modern router cannot make an ageing laptop, overloaded smart TV or distant security camera behave like a new device in the same room. Placement helps the network path; it does not upgrade every receiver in the house.

Practical Recap

  • Put the router in the open, not inside a cabinet, wardrobe or garage corner.
  • Choose a central location that favours the rooms where reliable Wi-Fi matters most.
  • Avoid kitchens, bathrooms, laundries, mirrors, fridges, TVs and dense brick paths where possible.
  • For long or multi-storey homes, consider Ethernet, wired mesh or access points instead of relying on one router.
  • Test from real-use rooms and judge stability, not just peak speed beside the router.
  • Ignore mostly wishful fixes like foil tricks, dramatic antenna pointing and constant restarts. Physical placement matters more.