I ran the application through its paces and made a quick demonstration video to show the information the application gathers about the nearby wireless networks.
The application runs on Windows Vista, 7 and 8 so I had to try it out on my trusty site survey laptop. That laptop has a b/g only wireless card built in, so I used my USB hub to connect the Linksys AE6000 a/b/g/n/ac adapter and the Wi-Spy mini.
The Wi-Spy mini is a new form factor for the Wi-Spy tool. The mini adapter is one of those tiny little tools that if you don't put it right back where you got it from, you'll lose it. I can easily see the Wi-Spy mini ending up in the washing machine because you left it in the pocket of your work pants. So put it back where you found it!
That being said, it is much nicer to have a teeny-tiny tool sticking out of the side of your laptop than a big honking thing with an attached antenna (now if only I had a survey laptop with more than one USB port).
The inSSIDer for Office has all of the features that you would need in order to identify all the nearby wireless networks and sources of interference affecting the 2.4GHz frequency. There are series of menu tabs LEARN, NETWORKS, CHANNELS and ANALYZE at the top of the screen. The application is well laid out and easy to navigate without having read the manual.
Sam Clements has also written a blog post about his hands-on experience with inSSIDer. I decided making a quick YouTube video was easier than me making a bunch of screen grabs. Sam already wrote a great post full of screen grabs!
The specs from the MetaGeek website list the features of inSSIDer for Office as:
- Display table of surrounding networks
- Trace Co-Channel and Overlapping Network strengths
- Powerful Filtering Engine
- Number of networks to “star” for optimization
- Link score reflects actual RF congestion
- Detailed breakdown of measurements per-channel
- Expert tips tailored to your environment
- Includes Wi-Spy Mini (coin-sized USB 2.4 GHz Spectrum Analyzer)
Jealous, I want one! Do you think the lack of 5GHz will be an issue at all even for a generic office IT person? With so much being moved to 5GHz with 802.11ac and more devices supporting it I would think they would want to check 5GHz as well.
ReplyDeleteI think that the lack of a 5GHz spectrum could become an issue for a generic IT person as 5GHz moves into becoming the preferred operational band. I also tried using inSSIDer with my Wi-Spy dbx (which sees both bands) and still didn't see the 5GHz spectrum. I wonder if it can be written into inSSIDer at a later date?
ReplyDeleteLucky!!!!
ReplyDelete