Influx WiFi Maximizing Router dock hands-on: Significant signal strength increase for just $60

It's very important to me to have a strong and reliable wireless internet connection throughout my home and home office, but for the last several months I have been struggling in this area. I test a large number of mobile devices and also need a reliable signal to complete my work.

Thanks in part to the new Influx WiFi Maximizing Router Dock I am now enjoying a strong signal throughout my home and home office.

For a couple of years I have been using an ASUS RT AC66U router connected to an Arris cable modem with service provided by Xfinity. I live in a new development and when I first moved in there were only five occupied homes. There are now more than 25 homes in the area and the cable internet system is well populated.

I've been experiencing regular loss of signal and poor range, leading me to use Powerline adapters in the movie room and the spare bedroom where my wife has her computer. I conducted some research and discovered that Xfinity now supports more channels to help maintain download speeds during peak usage hours. The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 modem looked perfect, while also providing wireless networking support, so I placed my order on Amazon.

The installation was easy and the modem router even supports self-activation without having to make the call to Xfinity like I had to do last time. After a month, the performance has been flawless and I have yet to lose my signal. However, I still have a few areas of my home with a weaker signal.

Prior to this new modem router, I was the first person to pre-order the Influx WiFi Maximizing Router Dock and received it early last week. As part of my full disclosure, Influx ended up refunding my payment since the product was delayed about a month.

The Influx WiFi Maximizing Router Dock is probably the simplest product I have ever tested out. It comes as a folded up piece of material that bends into a 90 degree angle and locks into position with two clips. You then run your cables through the small opening in the bottom back of the angled piece and set your router on top of the Influx dock.

That's it, there are no power cables, nothing special to configure, or anything. It is simply a half pound piece of carbon fiber (the actual material is more advanced, but feels like plastic) that acts to shield your network from neighboring signals while projecting your signal further. I received a question about the material from a reader, so looked up the US patent number and found out the material is associated with the TangiTek CleanSignal carbon fiber product.

Prior to the refund, I paid $59.99 for the Influx dock. I have to say when it arrived I was a bit caught off guard at how simply the dock actually was. Despite its simplicity, I was ready to test out the claims of providing up to a 50 percent signal improvement (that's 1.3 dBm).

I used a Google Nexus 6P with the WiFi Analyzer app to test the signal in the four locations, recording the results in dBm. dBm is measured power with orders of magnitude such that a change of about 3 dBm is double the power of the base reading. Here are my results (numbers in dBm):

As you can see in the table above, I experienced some change in the 5GHz frequency range while three of four locations saw much more than double the signal improvement in the 2.4GHz range. dBm ratings improved from 3 dBm to 14 dBm. One room stayed about the same in both the 5GHz and 2.4GHz frequencies, likely because that signal was near the modem router and is at the maximum signal strength possible for WiFi.

Influx WiFi Maximizing Router Dock image gallery

Other research revealed that -30 dBm is about the maximum achievable signal strength for a wireless network, less than -50dBM is considered an excellent signal, -50 to -60 dBM is considered a good signal, -67 dBM is the minimum recommended for streaming video and VoIP, -60 to -70 dBM is considered a fair signal with -70 dBM the recommended minimum for email and web surfing, and -80 dBM is the minimum for basic connecivity. With the Influx WiFi Maximizing Router Dock, all four of my locations are within the limits for streaming video in the 2.4 GHz range.

My results show that the Influx advertisement is valid and I am seeing a significant improvement in my wireless signal. Such improvement is easily worth the $60 value and with my new modem router I look forward to solid connectivity in my home and home office.