When And How To Turn Off WiFi

Many of you prefer to turn off your Wi-Fi especially when it’s not in use. Some also prefer to turn it off to save electricity or when all of their devices are using an Ethernet cable. No matter what your personal reason is, turning off a Wi-Fi is a very easy task. 

Turning Off Wi-Fi on A Phone or A Personal Computer

Different phones or computers will have slightly different settings when it comes to turning off their Wi-Fi network. But most of these settings can be found in very similar places under the general settings of any such device. 

If you are using a Window machine, you can turn off the Wi-Fi by using the Disable Wi-Fi option present in Control Panel. By doing so you will restrict your computer from accessing any Wi-Fi network until you re-enable it. Instead of using the Control Panel, you can also disconnect your computer from a Wi-Fi network with the help of the computer icon present adjacent to the clock icon. 

In case you are using a laptop, there is a physical Wi-Fi switch usually on the front or the side to turn On or Off the Wi-Fi. 

With Mac OS you can turn off the Wi-Fi by going to the menu bar, present at the top right side of your screen, click on the Wi-Fi option and chose Turn Off Wi-Fi. 

Antennas & Adapters – to disable Wi-Fi

You can also disable a Wi-Fi, by detaching its Wi-Fi adapter (such as a USB stick), removing this stick will automatically disable your Wi-Fi. But ensure that you follow all the recommended operating system procedures for the purpose of detaching the adapters as when not removed properly, you may lose data. 

Many wireless routers have, external detachable antennas also. But when you remove them, you will actually restrict or reduce the ability of such a router to transmit the Wi-Fi signal, instead of actually stopping the Wi-Fi signal transmission. Hence remember, detaching the external antennas will not disable your Wi-Fi at all. 

Turn Off the Wi-Fi Power Source

There are some routers which come with a few more advanced configuration settings, through which you can control the transmitter power of your Wi-Fi radio. This feature enables an administrator, who can easily adjust their network’s wireless signal range. Thus, changing the transmit power of your router to 0, you can actually disable your Wi-Fi. 

How to turn off Wi-Fi from a Router?

To disable a Wi-Fi connection especially from your home router is not as easy as it may seem. Some routers have a special button; with which you can easily turn off the Wi-Fi.

But for router’s which don’t come with this special button, you have to use its administrative console and turn the Wi-Fi off. Every router has a different mechanism or method which needs to be followed, for example in some routers, you can find the Disable Wireless option, somewhere in its settings menu. Some provide an option with which you can easily change the Wireless Network Mode to Off and disable your Wi-Fi.  

And in case your router lacks any of the above built-in features completely, you can always turn off the Wi-Fi by fully shutting down the entire unit.