Why you shouldn’t turn your broadband router off overnight
It may be tempting to turn your broadband router off overnight, but it’s a bad idea for several reasons.
Whether through force of habit, superstition or a mistaken belief it’s the right thing to do, millions of people across the UK make a major mistake with their broadband every day.
They turn their router off overnight.
A recent survey from Virgin Media concluded that 18 per cent of people do this as part of their going-to-bed routine.
In theory, that’s sensible – lock the doors, turn off the lights, switch off appliances.
In practice, it’s not recommended by either ISPs or router manufacturers.
These are some of the reasons why you might be tempted to turn your broadband router off overnight:
- To save electricity. Even on standby, electronic devices consume power, and a router is always alert, firing out data as it receives it. Which leads us onto…
- To protect against threats. We’re always being told that cyberspace is awash with new malware, so surely turning the router off prevents that malware from getting through?
- To keep kids offline. Disabling the router overnight ensures younger family members won’t be up until the small hours playing or viewing who-knows-what instead of sleeping.
- To reduce fire risk. Only once you’ve experienced a house fire do you understand the fear of a recurrence, and routers occasionally become hot after prolonged use.
Now we’ll consider the reasons why you shouldn’t turn your broadband router off overnight:
- Uploads can be scheduled at night. If you’re on a slow connection, organise large cloud uploads (to OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.) overnight to free up bandwidth during the day.
- Updates take place overnight. There are critical security risks in not updating firmware, antivirus software and operating systems, which often happen at night for convenience.
- Daytime updates may cause issues. A problematic router update can be fixed by your ISP before you wake up and need to rely on it, which clearly can’t happen during the day.
- As analogue phone lines are switched off, digital lines are piped through your router, which means you wouldn’t be able to make an urgent call if the router was turned off.
- Repeatedly turning your router off might cause ISP line monitoring software to lower line speeds in the mistaken belief there’s a fault, particularly on slower ADSL/FTTC connections.
It’s important to note that routers use negligible amounts of electricity, and some devices support the disabling of WiFi overnight without having to turn the entire appliance off.
There are workarounds for other supposed benefits, too. If your kids are addicted to gaming and surfing, set parental controls to limit access for specific devices, websites and/or apps.
Router fires are extremely rare, and usually caused by neglect – allowing dust to clog up air vents, trapping them in a confined space like a cupboard with minimal airflow, etc.
Resting them on a cool and non-flammable surface (e.g. glass, marble, concrete) will reduce their operating temperature, as will clearing vents and permitting air flow on all sides.
The only situation where it may be advisable to turn your broadband router off is when going away on holiday and leaving the house empty.
Providing you don’t use smart devices while out of the house (such as Ring doorbells or Alexa speakers), this will give the router a chance to cool down, install firmware and reboot.
