Will Metal Obstruction Affect WIFI Reception of My Sonos One Speaker?

[jptb]

Hi! I’m doing a little mod/add-on to my Sonos One wireless speaker (don’t ask what and why, long story ). My question is, how do you think this construction may affect WIFI-reception? I’ve marked the places where I think the antennas are, do you think the metal wire may interfere in some way?
Thankful for all input! Have an awesome Sunday!

 

[sophiecentaur]

Hi! I’m doing a little mod/add-on to my Sonos One wireless speaker (don’t ask what and why, long story ). My question is, how do you think this construction may affect WIFI-reception? I’ve marked the places where I think the antennas are, do you think the metal wire may interfere in some way?
Thankful for all input! Have an awesome Sunday!

Hi and welcome to PF.
An interesting problem; it would be quite possible that the verticals and the loops could certainly be having an effect (you have actually made yourself a simple RF screening cage! One thing you could try would be to change the WiFi channel, if possible. Also you could test the effect of rotating the speaker by a few degrees, in stages, and see if it changes the performance. Alternatively you could muck about with the external antennae on your router and go for a best position.

Reduce the number of metal rods - the present spacing could be 'just right' to mess up your wi reception.

Would you consider replacing the decorative metal arrangement with the same thing with plastic rods? Easy to bend to shape and not expensive.

I'm sure that other suggestions will follow - good luck.

 

[berkeman]

Hi! I’m doing a little mod/add-on to my Sonos One wireless speaker (don’t ask what and why, long story ).

Well, you could add the motivation in a reply, since that would help us to figure out if there is an alternative in case this does cause degradation of your speaker's reception.

Are the vertical metal pieces connected conductively at the base? They look to be insulated from each other at the top by the plastic zip-tie. If they are insulated at the bottoms as well (with a similar zip-tie?), then they should not interfere a lot with reception, IMO. To do any effective shielding, they would need to be connected to form a mesh; isolated vertical metal wires will serve as slight reflectors for vertical EM flowing by, but only partial reflectors and re-radiators when not interconnected.

Why are you using metal for the vertical pieces? Can you use wood or plastic pieces?