If you want to know how to boost your free smartphone signal at home for free, get ready for some good news. There are dozens of ways to boost the mobile signal in your house, apartment, or office. Nearly all are simple and don’t require you to buy or obtain any products. In fact, you can take simple actions like moving closer to a window or going outside, for example. Learning how to improve mobile signal strength is a simple but important skill.
How to Improve Smartphone Signal at Home
You don’t need to be an electrical engineer or computer technician to improve your smartphone signal at home. Try one or all of the below methods to see if they work for you. Keep in mind that not all phones are the same and not every strategy will work for everyone. Experiment, maintain a positive attitude, and make notes about what does and doesn’t work for your particular location and device.
- Locate nearby cell tower: This method works wonders for most users who try it. Go online and find out where your local cell tower is located. Pinpoint it on a map in relation to your home. Now, note the point, inside your home, that is closest to the tower and try standing near that point, inside or outside, when you use your phone. It’s quite possible you’ll notice a difference in clarity and signal strength.
- Stand in a different place: As noted above, you might simply need to stand in the area of your home that is closest to the nearest cell tower. Or, one or more of your home’s walls might contain large amounts of metal, extra thick stone, or lots of electrical wiring. All these things can wreak havoc with your phone connection. Walk around while using your phone and try to note the places in your home where the signal is strongest. In all likelihood, the places with the best signal will be away from metal walls and closer to the nearby cell tower.
- Increase your elevation: Phone signals are finicky. They respond to even the slightest changes in atmospheric pressure, outdoor temperature, cloud cover, and elevation of the device. If you’re in a basement or on a ground floor and having trouble with a weak signal, try going upstairs, onto the roof, or to any place that is a bit higher up. Believe it or not, some people in rural areas go outdoors and stand in the back of a pickup truck for better signal results. It works! And if you venture onto your roof, be careful—there’s no point in getting injured for the sake of a clear phone signal.
- Double-check the battery and battery connections: A faulty battery might be at the root of your problem. Depending on the make and model of your phone, it could be extremely sensitive to battery power, offering excellent signal strength when the battery is fully charged and a really bad signal when the battery is at 50 percent full or less.Another battery-related problem is a faulty connection on the poles. Check inside the device and make sure that the triple-pole connection, or whatever type of battery configuration you have, is in good shape. If your battery “wiggles” around when you shake the device, you probably have loose poles and need to get them repaired.
- Change your hand placement: Smartphones contain internal antennas. It’s possible to more or less block these antennas when holding a phone. Different manufacturers put the internal antennas in different parts of the phone, so you’ll have to experiment with your own device to find out if your way of holding it is blocking the antenna.
- Remove the case: This seems like a no-brainer and it is. Some makes and models of smartphones have very weak internal antennas. Even a thin phone case can decrease the power of the signal. Try removing your phone case during a call and see if you notice an instant improvement in call quality. If you do, try to use the phone without the case as much as possible while at home, always being careful not to drop the phone on a hard surface.
- Stay away from large metal objects and computers: As noted above when discussing walls, it’s possible for phones to lose their signals when they are near very thick objects, steel file cabinets, refrigerators, car port covers made of sheet metal, powerful desktop or laptop computers, and other sophisticated electronic devices. If you have any of these in your home, steer clear of them and you’ll probably have a better chance of getting good phone reception.
Be Cautious When Buying “Booster” Products
There are lots of retail products you can buy to boost your signal strength. Most are legit and relatively inexpensive, but every niche of life has become infested with scammers. That’s why you need to be careful if you purchase devices that boost signal strength.
Always remember to look for online reviews and try to purchase from known sellers, big box retail stores, or online sites you have come to trust. If anyone attempts to sell you an “amazing” signal-boosting device or gadget out of their car trunk, just say “no.” Only opt for products that are nationally advertised and sold in name-brand stores.
