What Makes A Good Helium 5G Location?

Doing research before buying a Helium 5G hotspot is essential.

We are going to go over what makes a location good or bad.

You want to avoid setting up these machines in some places. For example, let's say you live on a farm or rural where your next neighbor is miles away. This will be a lousy location if there's no one around to connect to these radios. Avoid the area.

Let's say you are in a rural location but have the most popular grocery store or coffee shop location for an area like this. Place some outdoor radios pointing towards the parking lot/road and multiple indoor radios to cover the inside of the store. Remember that obstructions like walls will impact the range and performance lot.

Now we move on to the suburbs.

If you are in a detached home and there's not much around you, I would avoid this.

Let's say you live near a very active dog park. You could place an outdoor antenna and aim it toward the dog park to get good coverage. Another good place is a bus station. But, again, only if there is a bunch of people would I deploy in such locations. 

Excellent locations will be very obvious. It's locations like New York, Miami, Austin, and San Fransisco. 

These areas are very dense with people and perfect for high foot traffic and cell phone traffic. If you can point an outdoor radio to cover the street, that would be great, and once again, shop owners can place indoor radios to cover the inside of their shop for great coverage. Remember obstructions!

These are some examples you can view on the explorer:

New York: https://explorer.helium.com/iot/hex/882a1072cbfffff

Miami: https://explorer.helium.com/iot/hex/8844a11287fffff

Austin: https://explorer.helium.com/iot/hex/88489e3463fffff

San Fransisco: https://explorer.helium.com/iot/hex/88283082bbfffff

In the end, there are some simple rules to follow.

If there are no people around, do not deploy in that area.

Crowded areas like a mall or coffee shop are great places to deploy.

Obstructions affect the performance of these radios. For example, if you are in a coffee shop, try and place an indoor radio and get light of sight for optimal results.

Real-world numbers of a Baicells 430h range is 1150ft downtown on a rooftop covering a street with minimal obstructions. The same radio is going about 500ft to the sides because there are buildings in its way and ruin the line of sight.

This is something to remember before buying into the Helium 5G network.

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