The free version lets you visualize only up to five access points at a time, which includes each radio on a multi-band router. You can also use a pop-up menu to toggle what’s overlaid on the map as a whole. This provides a lot of granularity at a glance, but just remember green, yellow, and red are good, better, best. As noted in my 2011 review, the spectrum of colors ranges from blue (terrible) through cyan to green (good) through yellow to red (best). The interactive map lets you select and deselect base stations in a list, so you can see in isolation and together what your best coverage is. The downstairs units, sampled through the floor, were only a few inches further off. The upstairs base station was placed within several inches. At the other end of the house, in a guest room, I have an 802.11n AirPort Express. In my case, I have an 802.11ac AirPort Extreme on our main floor, and then a single-band-at-a-time 802.11n AirPort Extreme in the basement near my desk. One of the absolute neatest features of NetSpot, and one reason I was immediately impressed with it originally, is that it can accurately calculate where your access points are located. Once you’ve finished sampling, you have an interactive map. You can mark just a handful of sampling points, but I like to use many for greater insight. Then you wander around your premises with a laptop, clicking to measure at various points. You measure the distance between two points you mark on the map and it uses that to scale the rest of the map. You can import a house or office plan, sketch one, use a sample map, or start with an empty page. Paint a Wi-Fi Picture - Netspot starts with a map. It’s a great way to get a two-dimensional lay of the land. Let’s start with Netspot, even though we’ll only use a fraction of its power. NetSpot has matured since then, and does its job even better now, while also adding some serious (and expensive) professional options above the free, non-commercial level. WiFi Explorer pairs beautifully with NetSpot, an OS X Wi-Fi signal-mapping program I reviewed way back in 2011 for Macworld. With a combination of graphic visualizations, lists of information, and the capability to drill down into super-technical details, WiFi Explorer has become my top recommendation for anyone trying to sort out a local Wi-Fi environment. It was first released in 2012, but didn’t appear on my radar until the 2.0 release in May 2015. That’s why I was excited to stumble across the $15 WiFi Explorer. But while IT professionals may find those useful, they’re overkill for home users and small business: they’re just too expensive. In the past, companies have loaned me spectrum analyzers, which examine all the radio signals on ranges of frequencies. #1644: Explaining Mastodon and the Fediverse, HomePod Software 16.3 and tvOS 16.3, GoTo breachĪs someone who has written about Wi-Fi for many years and tested hundreds of pieces of gear, I’m always looking for affordable, useful tools that let me analyze my home network.#1645: AirPlay iPhone to Mac for remote video, Siri learns to restart iPhones, Apple's Q1 2023 financials.1646: Security-focused OS updates, Photos Workbench review, Mastodon client wishlist, Apple-related conferences.1647: Focus-caused notification issues, site-specific browser examples, virtualizing Windows on M-series Macs.#1648: iPhone passcode thefts, Center Cam improves webcam eye contact, APFS Uncertainty Principle.
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