Wi-Fi
From a phone or tablet, the request rides radio waves to a box in the house.
One more sentence, for a grown-up
A computer joined with a cable skips the radio and still reaches the same router. Wi-Fi is a convenience, not a required hop.
Across a room or a house. The model is not to scale.
Real: What it looks like.
- Packets
Keys: arrows rotate · + / − zoom · 0 reset · 1–4 views · S signal · T tour · L labels · Space spin. The model is stylised. The network on this page is made up.
Every labeled part
- 1
The phone
The request leaves the phone as radio.
- 2
The waves
The waves fill the room. They are not a wire you can see.
- 3
The box
The home box catches the radio and turns it back into a signal on a wire.
- 4
A cable instead
The same message can travel a short cable and skip the radio.
- Packets
Try it
Send the same message by radio, or by a short cable.
The message rides radio waves to the box in the house.