Nearly every Wi-Fi complaint comes down to one of three things: where the router is, how old it is, or a problem that isn't the Wi-Fi at all. Sorting out which is most of the job.
$39 books an in-person visit and comes straight off the price. Remote help is $39 for 30 minutes. Card only, and you approve the price before we start.
Wi-Fi is radio, and radio doesn't like a closet behind the television. Most routers sit wherever the internet line happened to enter the house, usually a corner, and a corner sprays half its signal into the yard.
Brick, plaster with wire mesh, foil-backed insulation, mirrors and water heaters all block it hard. An older farmhouse with plaster walls can be worse for Wi-Fi than a much bigger new build.
Gigabit internet doesn't fix a dead spot. If the signal can't reach the back bedroom, a faster plan makes no difference there. It's the most common waste of money we see.
Past about 1,800 square feet, or in any house with thick interior walls or a second story, one router usually isn't enough no matter where it sits. A mesh system, two or three small units that hand your devices off between them, is the normal answer.
A cheap range extender isn't the same thing and often makes it worse: it halves the speed and creates a second network your phone clings to after you've walked away from it.
We'll tell you if the equipment you have can do the job with a move and a reconfigure. Quite often it can, and then the visit costs you an hour and no shopping trip.
Some of these fix it outright, in ten minutes, and save you the visit.
We don't do hardware repair, the kind that needs parts or a soldering iron. Better to know that before anybody drives out.
$39 books an in-person visit, and it comes straight off the price of the visit. Our hourly rate steps up with distance from downtown of the city that serves your area: $110 an hour within 25 miles, $130 in the 25 to 50 mile band, and $145 in the 50 to 75 mile band. That's how we cover the drive, so there's no separate travel fee.
Remote help is $39 for a 30-minute session and starts with a phone call at the time you picked. If you use us a few times a year, Nerd on Call is $14.99 a month and includes two remote sessions and an in-person visit each year.
Cards only. Local Nerds aren't permitted to accept cash or checks, so you'll never be asked for either at the door. Full detail is on the FAQ.
Rather talk it through first? Have a Local Nerd call you, free, no obligation.
In-person visits reach up to 75 miles out from downtown of each city we serve, whichever state that address is in. Remote help works anywhere. Check your address on the ZIP checker, or see the whole state on the map.
The three usual causes are a router in a bad spot, a router old enough that it struggles with the number of devices in a modern house, or interference from something nearby. Dropping in one room is coverage. Dropping everywhere at once, especially at the same time each day, points at the router or your internet service.
No. Speed and coverage are different problems. If the signal doesn't reach the back bedroom, a faster plan won't change that. Test the speed next to the router and again in the bad room. If there's a big gap, spend the money on coverage.
In most houses that need more coverage, mesh is the right answer and an extender is a false economy. An extender typically halves the speed and creates a second network name your devices hang onto too long. Mesh units hand your phone off cleanly.
Yes. We set them up, place the units where your house needs them, which isn't always where the box suggests, move your devices across, and make sure the printer and the smart TV come with you. That last part usually gets forgotten.
$39 books the visit and comes off the price. Our rate is $110 an hour within 25 miles of downtown of the city that serves your area, $130 in the 25 to 50 mile band and $145 in the 50 to 75 mile band, with no separate travel fee. Most Wi-Fi visits are an hour to an hour and a half.
You do, and you keep it. We'll tell you what to get for your house and what not to bother with before you spend anything, and we don't take a cut from anybody's hardware.