The Design Nerd field guide

Plan smarter.
Install once.

Practical guides for designing reliable WiFi, camera, access control, and cabling systems before work begins on site.

Office floor plan with overlapping wireless access point coverage fields

WiFi planning

7 min read

How many access points does your building actually need?

A practical framework for estimating AP count without relying on square-footage rules alone.

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Three office sections visualizing different wireless frequency coverage ranges

RF design

8 min read

2.4 GHz vs. 5 GHz vs. 6 GHz: planning for each band

Understand the coverage, capacity, and wall-penetration tradeoffs that change AP placement.

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Network installation equipment arranged over a detailed floor plan

UniFi

6 min read

A better pre-installation checklist for UniFi projects

The floor plans, measurements, switch capacity, and cable details worth confirming before install day.

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Security camera coverage cones across a commercial lobby and corridor

Protect

9 min read

Planning camera coverage without creating blind spots

How mounting height, lens choice, field of view, lighting, and retention affect a Protect design.

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Installation-ready network floor plan showing devices and cable paths

Infrastructure

5 min read

What a network floor plan should show your installer

Turn a conceptual design into a useful field document with racks, pathways, drops, labels, and power.

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Wireless signal attenuating through glass, drywall, brick, concrete, and metal

Design fundamentals

6 min read

Why wall materials matter in a WiFi heatmap

Concrete, glass, brick, drywall, wood, and metal do not affect RF equally. Here is how to model them.

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Use what you learned

Put your next network on the floor plan.

Model the building, place the hardware, and find coverage problems before installation day.

Start designing free