Your router authorizes devices to access your internet connection and distributes internet bandwidth to those devices.

If you run a connection check for any camera and discover that the Wi-Fi signal strength is strong but the upload speed is low, one solution may be to upgrade your router. You may also find that your phone's speed test results are faster than the camera's. That is because your phone's Wi-Fi chip allows the phone to be an all-purpose internet browsing tool. It is designed to receive and send enough data to support multiple internet activities simultaneously. Our camera's Wi-Fi chips are designed specifically for streaming, which at most requires 2 Mbps for 1080p, and so do not have as high capacity as the phone's Wi-Fi chip.

Before You Upgrade

First, contact your ISP to ensure your internet package has sufficient upload speed. Please visit here to determine upload speed requirements. Please note that upload speed degrades when transmitted over Wi-Fi, so you may need to purchase more upload speed than the bare minimum in order to ensure your camera(s) have enough bandwidth.

Upgrading Your Router

If you’ve determined that your ISP is providing sufficient upload speed to you, then the cause of the weak upload speed may be that the router is outdated. As internet-connected devices improve, they demand more from your Wi-Fi router. Because of this, routers more than a few years old don’t work as well when supporting multiple modern devices. 

We recommend upgrading to a newer router such as the TP-Link Deco E3. This router integrates well with the TP-Link Wi-Fi extenders which we also recommend. Before purchasing this router or any other routers, please contact your ISP to ensure it is compatible with their system. Your ISP will also have router recommendations.