iPhone se 2020 model has poor wifi signal

I think I'm having similar experience. I recently moved from an 8 Plus to an SE 2020 and over the past couple days I've been setting up the 8+ for my father. Wifi in my house is a bit uneven and I've noticed the SE consistently shows 1 bar less Wifi strength than the 8+ as I move around the house, with the main exception being if Im in the same room as Wifi access point where the SE will show full strength.

I think we'll be seeing increasingly more peculiarities like this with the SE 2020. Corners had to be cut *somewhere* to reach that price point.

I too have 2 major issues

My OLD Iphone works fine with lower spec than Iphone SE 2020

1. Very bad WIFI Signal
2. Very Very Very Bad battery backup (after disabling all notification / locations / vibrations / email scan / backgroup refresh) Using like 10 year back phone -- still the battery drains in 4-5 hours.. Very disappointed and my making this BAD choice..

Hope Apple will release a FIX for this ASAP.. ??

Will Apple hear our concerns ??

I had an iphone 8 wifi signal was fine phone would auto connect to networks that it was suppose to. My new iphone se 2020 will not auto connect most of the time. I have to manually connect and sometimes i get a move closer to router message. I could walk around outside my house and still connect to wifi with the 8 not with the se. I have 4 blink cameras outside my house that have no issue connecting to wifi. I believe there is a software or hardware issue with the se wifi.

Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities, Robjame5.

If we understand your post correctly, your iPhone will connect to your Wi-Fi network but drops the connection. We’d like to help.

Follow the steps in this article:

If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch won’t connect to a Wi-Fi network

Let us know if that resolves this issue for you. 

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Take care.

Okay, I debugged the cause to my EXACT issue:

1. Connect to a Wi-Fi.
2. Test internet connection (It works great).
3. Lock your phone and step away for 15 - 30 minutes.
4. Unlock your phone and notice the Wi-Fi bar is there, and it says connected, however, 50% chance that you DON'T have internet connection for 1 - 2 minutes while it tries to reconnect.

Basically, in lock screen mode, sometimes Internet/Wi-Fi disappears. And every time you unlock, it takes 1 - 2 minutes to re-connect.

I tried both Network and Factory reset. Problem is still there.

Also, this is NOT MY WI-FI. I have an iPhone XS and iPhone 7. They both work great with my Wi-Fi.

The first picture is from Samsung galaxy S10 and the second picture is from iPhone SE 2020. Both were kept at same distance from WiFi router(25 feet). No other devices were connected to the router. Ran the test individually and these are the results.

As you can see, even at longer distances(25 feet), it works now. Some people say that it's hardware issue, but how can it be. This problem has been even with iPhone X, Xs, 6 but was fixed with software update. I hope the problem is fixed for others too.

Problem fixed after modem update. Current modem version: 2.03.04.

I have same problem with iPhone SE 2020. My old android phones, Moto G5S Plus, tablet nexus 7, or my wife’s samsung have good connection even in room in other side of apartment as our wifi router is located. But with iPhone SE if i am in room far from wifi router, wifi is droping or it doesn’t find wifi at all and i must go much closer to establish connection. It’s more than twice as expensive as my other android phones but it’s worst when it comes to wifi strength. It’s shame that apple make such poor product. And from other features dual sim functionality is joke compared to android. But at least camera and fast cpu is strong side of this device.

I’m having this problem the se will not connect to WiFi unless I’m really close to router then as soon as I walk away it drops signal and I have to manually connect again I’ve got a oneplus nord and it doesn’t do this there is definitely a problem with either hardware or software it’s so frustrating

I had this exact problem. My new iPhone SE 2020 would not establish a WiFi signal in my office whereas my iPhone 6 has 2/3 WiFi bars on the indicator. The suggestions in this thread and other places that seek to run you through the list of 'forget network and re-establish' and 'is your router OK?' are red herrings. I spent a month testing the SE 2020 vs. my iPhone 6 and concluded the WiFi performance on the SE 2020 is severely limited in comparison. I worked with ATT to return my SE 2020 and upgraded to an iPhone 11 pro. I am happy to report the 11 pro has /better/ WiFi than my iPhone 6, and works great in my office whereas the SE 2020 could not even see a WiFi signal. Keep in mind I have three Ubiquiti AC PRO access points in a 2400 sq. ft. house, so suffice it to say my WiFi signal is nearly ideal. An suffice it to say, the SE 2020 WiFi performance is literally the worst I have seen on any device including 20 year old laptops. I firmly believe Apple should at least notate in their literature that the WiFi performance may be an issue for some users. In my case, it was fully unusable.

I wish I’d returned mine bought it off Amazon return date has passed I just kept thinking a software update would fix it but I think it’s a hardware problem rest of phone is great but I’ll be selling it because of this WiFi issue

I'm having this exact same issue with my new SE. I have looked at the steps in the link that was provided and none of them were helpful in correcting my problem. Do you have any other suggestions? With my iPhone 6, I was able to get an adequate, two-bar signal in my garage. With this SE, it doesn't want to connect. My network will sometime even show in the list of available networks, sometimes with two bars showing for it, but it still tells me that I need to move closer to the router.

same here. The new SE always drop the wifi connection everytime the screen turn off and takes time to go back online when screen is on while the iPad works fine with the good wifi signal. Both my SE and iPad connect to the same router.

My new se2020 constantly loses the wifi signal. My iphone 6 worked beautifully on same home network. What good is a smartphone that can't maintain a wifi connection? The phone is useless to me. Apple should admit that se2020 is defective and put out a recall and fix the problem or refund the purchase price or offer a free upgrade. Please stop offering these rediculous solutions about routers and restarting my phone.

Same problem here Rob. I found out a very interesting thing that proves that this problem is not a hardware issue!

The WiFi signal strength has been reduced purposely by Apple to preserve battery life.

I kept my iPhone at a farther distance from router and ran a Speedtest. I got download speeds around 5 Mbps.

Then at the same distance, I connected the iPhone to the charger and ran the test again. This time though, the speed topped 30 Mbps.

Clearly, this proves that it is a software solution to preserve battery life as the iPhone SE 2nd generation battery is small. Hope it helps!

You understood it wrong. Your iPhone SE 2nd generation's WiFi strength by default is set to low or medium to preserve battery life. But while you connect it to your charger, it boosts the strength to its max so that it can work normally even at a farther distance.

So no need to connect to a charger when your around 6 feet near to the router. If you face any issues in speed at at

farther distance, then there's no other way, you must charge and use it to get good signal reception.