Q. I love watching streaming on our Vizio Smart TV, particularly Netflix. But sometimes I lose the connection to my WiFi network. My Internet signal strength seems to be good and we have a top-tier Internet package from Comcast. So, do you have any ideas on how to fix this? — Michelle, Boston.
Michelle, your problem is not uncommon with Vizio Smart TVs, or any Smart TV, plus Smart TV devices such as Blu-ray players, Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. The streaming player will simply lose its connection with your WiFi network, perhaps just for a few seconds, but long enough to interrupt your program or movie.
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The disconnect is a major inconvenience, but Vizio’s Support page at Vizio.com actually offers some suggestions on how to reduce, if not eliminate, the problem.
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For starters, Vizio says it recommends that your Smart TV (or another Smart TV device) be positioned no more than 30 feet away from your Internet modem. This is to ensure that your set can easily pick up the WiFi signal from the modem. The further away the modem is, the more likely that your TV will have difficulty maintaining a consistently strong connection.
Of course, in many homes, particularly large ones, the 30-feet rule is not practical. While you may have the modem stationed in the strategically-smart center of the house (to allow all rooms to have an equal chance of receiving the WiFi signal), there still could be family members trying to stream from the basement, or an upstairs, corner bedroom which is more than 30 feet away.
In this case, you might want to purchase a wireless range extender that will (hopefully) bring a strong WiFi signal to every room, nook and cranny of your home. You mentioned that you have Comcast so you might want to consider getting the company’s new XFi Pod, which promise to do just that. They cost $119 for a pack of three.
If you are still having issues after taking those steps, Vizio suggests trying to stream on the Smart TV alone to see if the connection improves. Sometimes your WiFi signal will lose strength if several devices in the house are operating at the same time.
Finally, one last idea: Connect your Vizio Smart TV directly to the modem with an Ethernet cable. That will bypass the WiFi network entirely and (hopefully, again) deliver a stronger signal to your set.
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— Phillip Swann
As we move into the future and more content is streamed at a higher bitrate, higher resolution, and in HDR I went ahead and removed all coaxial in my walls except for the one that connects my Internet Modem, and replaced every other room with Ethernet in place of where coaxial outlets were. It took time and effort, but streaming YouTubeTV and Philo is flawless on our local (wired) area network and we don’t have to worry about WiFi at all, except for a handful of phones and tablets. It takes effort, but in the long run it’s so worth it.