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 VS WIFI EXPLORER PROFESSIONAL#
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. 1654: Urgent OS security updates, upgrading to macOS 13 Ventura, using smart speakers while temporarily blindĪs 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.#1655: 33 years of TidBITS, Twitter train wreck, tvOS 16.4.1, Apple Card Savings, Steve Jobs ebook.#1656: Passcode thieves lock iCloud accounts, the apps Adam uses, iPhoto and Aperture library conversion in Ventura.#1657: A deep dive into the innovative Arc Web browser.#1658: Rapid Security Responses, NYPD and industry standard AirTag news, Apple's Q2 2023 financials.
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