MetaGeek at Wireless Field Day 2 - Eye P.A.

MetaGeek was a return presenter at Wireless Field Day 2, and presented us with their new application Eye P.A. Eye P.A. is a completely new way of visualizing data captured in a WinPcap file.

 


Trent Cutler of MetaGeek demonstrates Wi-Spy at WFD2 from Stephen Foskett on Vimeo.

Some of the intuitive visualizations in Eye P.A are:
Flashlight on hover - highlights the data type you've pinpointed with your pointerTool tips - helper information on menu choices
Colors used to represent different types of date:
Blues - data
Purples - management
Orange - control and subframe types
Light blue - QoS data
Dark blue - data without QoS

The table data to the right of the circular visualizations shows data on the information that is selected. You can sort by bytes, retry rates, etc. The flashlight feature will also show total amounts of bytes and the pie is the total amount of time that it took to send the packets. This method of visualizing wireless capture data was accurately described as "The Eye P.A. is legacy hardware's worst nightmare."



Some changes to their Wi-Spy application: They've added a session manager to record the data in the background and handle session transitions better between hardware sessions. You can now view recorded data while you're capturing data and capturing simultaneously on 2.4 and 5ghz with two Wi-Spy devices.

Their device finder patch antenna has no sidelobes, it was designed to aid in finding sources of interference and high RF utilization devices.

If you haven't already checked out MetaGeek's YouTube channel, I highly recommend you do so. They've shared a huge amount of great information on their entire product line, and it is well worth you spending some time to get familiar with their offerings.
As a part of the Wireless Field Day 2 events, Metageek provided me with copies of all of their latest software offerings. I've used Eye P.A. to get a better view into what sort of data is traversing a given wireless infrastructure. I've found it quite helpful in understanding who the top talkers are, and what kind of data they're sending.

MetaGeek was a sponsor of Wireless Field Day 2.  As such, they were responsible for covering a portion of my travel and lodging expenses while attending Wireless Field Day 2. They did not ask for, nor where they promised any kind of consideration in the writing of this review/analysis.  The opinions and analysis provided within are my own and any errors or omissions are mine and mine alone.