iPhone 5 wifi signal strength issues

Could only get wifi signal when i was standing next to my router if i walked away more than 10 feet it would drop out.

Had my visit to the Apple store today, Tried telling the lady it was NOT a software isuue, she kept saying it was she did another restore gave it back said it should be fine. I checked and same issue, phone now changed for a new one and all good.

Good to see I am not the only one having this issue. I have the smae issue on the my iphone5 (received on 9/25). Wifi signal bar shows waek signal and cuting in the out. The first one i have i noticed the wifi signal bar is weak and wifi is cutting in the out. I bring it to Apple store yesterday(9/30), they can duplicate the issue. They can't even connect to Apple store's wifi. so they replaced a new one for me and it seems connect correctly at Apple store.

However, When I got home, I notice the new one the wifi signal bar is still bouncing. it's better than the first one I got. Iit extend about 10 more ft but still not right. I compared my iphone 5, my firends' two iphone 5 and my iphone 4 and tried at different locations and use different routers . It's very noticeable that my iphone wifi signal is weaker than all the other iphones.

I bring it back to Apple store again(10/1), now they are saying it's connect to Apple's Wifi. so it's not he phone issue. it's my wifi router. I tried to explain to them the difference on this iphone 5 and the others. They just said it was repalced and they cannot replace another one for me sicen it's working in Apple Store. I tried to explain to them it's will connect if Ithe device is close to the wifi antenna where Apple store is the case, if you go further it will dispear. They don't even want to test.

They just told me i have to wait and use it couple days so they can run diagnose on my phone(watch out, Apple is collecting some data on your phone remotely. I don't know what is collected but soulds scary). Ok, I will wait, but I really double if they can tell the difference one the wifi signal.

I have to say, there have some issues on this wifi antenna connection. so far it seems they don't think it's an issue. Let's shout it out loud and get Apple's attention.

I have a similar wifi issue but perhaps less severe. I use an airport extreme (2nd generation0 that gives excellent signal strength for laptops, imacs and ipad. The iphone 5 that I just set up gives a noticably weaker signal unless close (20- 30 feet) and then it seems fine. Also the signal is jumpy gaining and lossing strength constantly (I monitor with inet software). The signal can also drop to were the cell data connection takes over as the wifi connection is temporaily lost. I did the resets after contacting apple but no change. Will go to apple store and see how it behaves there but it does seem like a hardware issue with varying degree of severity.

I was having poor wifi reception with my iPhone 5 with it having just one bar while all of my other devices had two or three bars. Finally tried a hard reboot on the device and the reception immediately improved to three bars (full wifi).

I had this exact same issue. My new iphone 5 (bought first day) had very weak wifi reception at my house. Much weaker than my or my girlfriend's iPhone 4. Went to the Apple store today. Very helpful Genius at first thought it might be a software issue, but I informed her that I had restored and reset already (I think this is an important step to do before coming in so as to cross off "software excuses"). She took it into the back and was able to replicate the wifi problem: reception became weaker in the back part of the store, which apparently should never happen. She then swapped for a new one, which works great in my house. Definitely smells like there is a statistically significant number of phones that have this hardware issue.

Same issue here....went to the apple store and got a replacement in 5 minutes. The guy who helped me knew exactly what i was talking about. He knew exactly what to look for....i'm sure the eployees know about this issue now. The new phone now picks up all the wifi signals in my apartment complex! I love this phone and i love how apple backs up their product.

I got my iPhone 5 last week. I started to notice the poor Wi-Fi signal yesterday.

I have done some speed tests via speedtest.net and seems to maintain the speed I am expecting.

All my other previous iPhone models do show full signal, but none I them reached the maximum speed of my ISP service.

I would continue monitoring and will compare with my wife's iPhone 5.

I had the same issue on my iphone 5, it only had one bar of wifi signal strength. I just reset it by holding down home and sleep together until it restarts and now its full strength again. Strange.

The fix is to do a HARD RESET. My iphone 5 just started showing low bars and a hard reset cleared the problem. I didn't have reception problems, the phone was just showing less than one wave.

The hard reset fixed the erroneous display.

That actually did it, went from one bar (wherever I was) to full bars right away. Thanks!

Hard Reset (home button + lock/power button) worked for me as well

I had same issue on my home as well as work wifi (both use apple routers)

I fixed this on Verizon iphone5 by:

- switch off bluetooth

- hard reboot the phone

Went from no bars (or 1 bar at best) to full 5 bars.

I've had the same issue both at home and at work. Just tried the hard reset and it worked! Thanks Apple Community Members! 🙂

Mine works fine connecting to my old Netgear WPA2 router and at work on our 5ghz router and the speeds are great. The problem for me is the range is useless. My old 3GS picked up mine and the neighbours wifi on either side (I live mid terraced). My iphone 5 starts losing signal as soon as I go out of the kitchen where the router is. I can't imagine what it would be like if I had a big house!!

I now have to choose where I sit in Starbucks according to whether or not I receive the signal! The other day I was in Starbucks in Windsor and didn't think they had wifi until my gfriend switched her 3GS on and got full signal! I've read that 5ghz speeds are great but the downside is that it's range is less than the 2.4ghz. Why don't apple with a software update do what other phone manufacturers do and have settings in the menu where you can choose between Auto, 5ghz or 2.4ghz? I'm wondering if some of the range issues are where the phone is constantly looking for 5ghz so restricts the 2.4ghz?

I don't think its an iOS 6 issue as my old 3GS has had 6.0 and 6.0.1 and works fine. Maybe it's a smaller antenna issue as the iphone 5 is smaller/thinner than previous models?

I'm now nervous about buying an ipad mini as read that it has the same wifi chipset as the iphone 5!

Have tried hard resets, setting up as a new phone etc.

HARD RESET worked for me.

I have been having this problem for weeks, decided to google search "iphone 5 poor wifi signal" and it lead me to this discussion. I held down home button and top button until phone turned off, then released and pushed the top button to turn the phone back on. Be careful doing this as if you were to push both buttons until the phone went off, then released the top button and held the home button, you could eneter DFU mode which may require you to plug into iTunes for a good old RESTORE. Don't do that, just hold both to turn off and then release all buttons.. Then push the button on top to turn back on.

Don't connect your iphone to the computer while performing this operation... You never know what iTunes will decide to do...