With over 1M downloads, Wi-Fi Inspector is the global standard for network visibility and real-time wireless network status monitoring to ensure optimal performance all the time. Wi-Fi Inspector 2.0 operates on Windows and Mac OS X systems and supports the latest Wi-Fi standards including 802.11ac Wave 1 and Wave 2 technology.
Mac Tool For Measure Wifi Strength Strength
- This Wi-Fi network discovery tool displays every wireless hotspot’s MAC address, encryption, signal strength and channel, and is the standard troubleshooting tool for millions of Wi-Fi users.
- WiFi utility to measure signal strength; Latest Threads + Post New Thread. Page 1 of 2 1 2 Last. Jump to page. Also found a handy list of alternatives recently that has suggestions for Mac utilities too. 25th November 2008, 12:44 PM #10. Ric_ Join Date Jun 2005 Location. The WiSpy 2.4x is an amazing tool for this, in combination with a.
- Dec 28, 2011 Wi-Fi Diagnostics is an incredibly useful utility to troubleshoot and optimize any wireless network and the signal strength of computers that are connecting to it. This utility first came bundled in Mac OS X Lion and works with all wireless routers and not only the Apple branded ones, meaning you can improve the performance of just about any wifi network by using it and making some.
- NetSpot is a free wireless network signal analysis and troubleshooting tool available for both Mac and Windows computers. In addition to a standard WiFi discovery and monitoring section it also has a site survey feature that allows for the relative network signal strengths to be plotted onto a map of your building or local area.
Want a better Wi-Fi connection on your MacBook? First you’ll want to teach yourself how wireless networks function, and then start optimizing them. OS X comes with tools that can help.
We’ve talked about optimizing your home’s Wi-Fi receptionWireless Feng Shui: How to Optimize Your House For Best Wi-Fi ReceptionWireless Feng Shui: How to Optimize Your House For Best Wi-Fi ReceptionSetting up a Wi-Fi network should be an easy prospect, shouldn't it? I mean, a house is a closed-in box, and you'd think when you place a device that transmits wireless signals in all directions..Read More, and explained the wireless networking terms that everyone should knowWireless Networking Simplified: The Terms You Should KnowWireless Networking Simplified: The Terms You Should KnowDo you know the difference between an 'access point' and an 'ad hoc network? What is a 'wireless repeater' and how can it improve your home network?Read More, but if you really want to improve things you need an accurate way of gauging your connection.
Fortunately your MacBook comes with a number of useful tools for diagnosing network issues, plus there are a handful of third party tools that give you even more information.
Summarise Your Current Connection
A lot of Mac users don’t know this, but OS X comes with some fairly advanced wireless monitoring tools out-of-the-box. You just need to know where to find them. You probably know that if you click the Wi-Fi icon in the menubar, you’ll get a list of nearby wireless networks.
Here’s a useful trick: hold the option key, then click the Wi-Fi icon in the menubar. You’ll see a lot more information about the network you’re currently connected to.
There’s many things your Mac’s option key can do20 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do with the Mac Option Key20 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do with the Mac Option KeyThe Command steals the limelight on your Mac's keyboard, but it’s the Option key that is the real hero.Read More, but this one is really useful for seeing a summary of your current network. Here’s what all this information means, starting from the top: Cleanup tool for mac download.
- IP Address: Your computer’s IP on the local network.
- Router: The IP of the router on the local network. You’ll need this if you want to configure your routerHow to Configure Your Router to Make Your Home Network Really SecureHow to Configure Your Router to Make Your Home Network Really SecureDefault router settings put your network at risk, allowing freeloading strangers to squeeze nadwidth and potentially commit crimes. Use our summary to configure your standard router settings to prevent unauthorized access to your network.Read More.
- Internet: Lets you know if Internet access is available over the current network or not.
- Security: Outlines the kind of encryption used by the network you’re currently connected to.
- BSSID: The MAC (media access control) address of the router you’re connected to, useful for identifying access points on a network with more than one.
- Channel: The frequency your router is using. You might want to change this if there’s too much interference.
- Country Code: Tells you which nation the router was designed to work in. Different countries use slightly different frequencies, depending on radio regulations.
- RSSI: Received signal strength indication, a way of measuring how powerful the signal currently is.
- Noise: A way of measuring how much other signals are interfering with your Wi-Fi connection
- TX Rate: The max speed you can expect with your current signal.
- PHY Mode: The type of connection your router is offering.
- MCS Index: Can be used to calculate the maximum bandwidth of your current connection.
That’s quite a bit of information, all easy to access with just a keystroke and a click. But if you want more, you don’t have to look very far: a world of data is just a few keystrokes away.
See Information About Other Nearby Networks
Click the Wi-Fi icon again while holding the option key, but this time click Open Wireless Diagnostics.
This will open an app primarily designed to help guide you through difficulties with your wireless connection.
Instead of following the steps, however, click Window in the menubar, then click Scan. This will open a window that lets you see all the information we saw above, but for every network visible your Mac can detect. Your current connection can be seen in bold.
Mac Tool For Measuring Wifi Strength Test
There’s a lot of ways you can use this information, particularly if your Wifi signal is currently weak or regularly dropping out. To start: if there are too many networks using the same channel in one area, interference is going to be high.
Speaking of interference: if you want to get an idea of where in your house the signal is seriously being interfered with, click Window in the menubar again, then click Performance. You’ll get a realtime monitor:
Walk around and you can see how your movement affects performance. You want to keep the rate, quality and signal high, and the noise as low as possible. It’s neat, but let’s keep going down this rabbit hole and find even more information.
Third Party Apps Offer Even More Information
The tools included with OS X give you access to all sorts of key points, but if you want even more there are a number of third party tools out there that can help you learn even more.
For example: NetSpot is free for non-commercial use, and gives you access to more information than the above methods.
Unlike Apple’s included tool, this will continue to scan every visible network every 10 seconds. This means you can walk around and see where your signal is weakest, and which other networks are causing interference. The Signal To Noise ratio indicator is a big help here, because you can quickly ascertain how the signal changes as you walk around.
And it gets better: as we’ve outlined before, you can actually walk around and make a map of your Wi-Fi signalMap Your Wireless Network Signal Strength With NetSpotMap Your Wireless Network Signal Strength With NetSpotRead More. This helps you find weak points that you can address by changing your router’s channel, moving your router, or using a Wi-Fi extenderHow Wi-Fi Extenders Work & 3 Best Ones You Should BuyHow Wi-Fi Extenders Work & 3 Best Ones You Should BuyWi-Fi extenders, which are sometimes called Wi-Fi repeaters or Wi-Fi boosters, boost the signal from your wireless router.Read More.
There are some other programs worth checking out too:
- WiFi Radar Pro, offers a simple interface for a lot of the above information — $12, with a free trial.
- iStumbler, in addition to WiFi, also detects Bluetooth signals --$25, with a free trial.
- Kismac2 is an open source Mac tool for scanning networks. We’ve mentioned it’s now-abandoned predecessor beforeTwo Awesome Free WiFi Scanners For The MacTwo Awesome Free WiFi Scanners For The MacRead More. There currently isn’t a stable version available, and a trial resulted in more than a few problems, but so far it’s a very powerful tool that we could easily see ourselves checking out once the bugs are worked out — free.
How Do You Scan Wireless Connections On Your Mac?
These are the best Wi-Fi tools we’ve found for the Mac, but we’re always amazed at what our readers manage to find. So we want to know: what tools have you used to improve your Mac’s Wi-Fi signal?
And while you’re thinking about Wi-Fi, why not read up on how to see if someone’s stealing your Wi-FiHow to Check If Someone Is Stealing Your WiFi & What You Can Do About ItHow to Check If Someone Is Stealing Your WiFi & What You Can Do About ItRead More, or how to hide your WiFi networkHow to Hide Your Wi-Fi Network and Prevent It From Being SeenHow to Hide Your Wi-Fi Network and Prevent It From Being SeenWireless networks are less secure than wired networks. Want to hide your router? Here's how to do that and why you shouldn't.Read More. Though, of course, the above methods will reveal hidden Wi-Fi networks, which kind of makes hiding them feel pointless, but you get the idea.
Let us know any tips you have to share, and anything else you’d like to know, in the comments below.
Explore more about: Computer Networks, OS X El Capitan, Troubleshooting, Wi-Fi.
If you live in an apartment complex, you’ve probably noticed more than just the passive-aggressive network IDs that your neighbors use—very likely you’ve had problems with your wireless connections dropping out, or just not being as fast as you’d like. This often has to do with the Wi-Fi channels in your area.
If you’re on the same Wi-Fi channel as a lot of your neighbors, you’ll experience a lot of interference with their networks—so it’s best to choose a different channel with fewer people on it. When you do, you’ll reduce that interference and improve your WI-Fi signal.
The first step, though, is finding out which channel is least congested in your area. These tools will help you identify which nearby networks are using which channels.
Note that Wi-Fi channels overlap with nearby channels. Channels 1, 6, and 11 are the most frequently used for 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, and these three are the only ones that don’t overlap with each other.
![Mac Tool For Measuring Wifi Strength Mac Tool For Measuring Wifi Strength](https://www.netspotapp.com/images/upload/screens/netspot-2-completing.jpg)
Windows: NirSoft WifiInfoView
We previously recommended inSSIDer for this on Windows, but it’s become paid software. You probably don’t want to pay $20 just to figure out which Wi-Fi channel is ideal, so use a free tool instead.
Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector is very powerful, but it’s a bit overkill for this. We liked NIrSoft’s WifiInfoView instead — its simple interface does the job and it doesn’t need any installation. Launch the tool, locate the Channel header, and click it to sort by Wi-Fi channel. Here, we can see that channel 6 looks a bit cluttered — we might want to switch to channel 1 instead.
Mac: Wireless Diagnostics
Believe it or not, macOS actually has this feature integrated. To access it, hold the Option key and click the Wi-Fi icon on the menu bar at the top of your screen. Select “Open Wireless Diagnostics.”
Ignore the wizard that appears. Instead, click the Window menu and select Utilities.
Select the Wi-Fi Scan tab and click Scan Now. The “Best 2.4 GHz Channels” and “Best 5 GHz” Channels” fields will recommend the ideal Wi-Fi channels you should be using on your router.
Linux: The iwlist Command
You could use a graphical app like Wifi Radar for this on Linux, but you’d have to install it first. Instead, you might as well just use the terminal. The command here is installed by default on Ubuntu and other popular Linux distributions, so it’s the fastest method. Don’t fear the terminal!
Open a Terminal and run the following command:
sudo iwlist wlan0 scan | grep (Channel
Read the output of the command to see which channels are the most congested and make your decision. In the screenshot below, channel 1 looks the least congested.
Mac Tool For Measuring Wifi Strength Indicator
Android: Wifi Analyzer
RELATED:How To Get a Better Wireless Signal and Reduce Wireless Network Interference
If you want to search for Wi-Fi channels on your phone instead of your PC, the easiest-to-use application we’ve found is Wifi Analyzer on Android. Just install the free app from Google Play and launch it. You’ll see an overview of the wireless networks in your area and which channels they’re using.
Tap the View menu and select Channel rating. The app will display a list of Wi-Fi channels and a star rating — the one with the most stars in the best. The app will actually tell you which Wi-Fi channels are better for your Wi-Fi network, so you can go straight to your router’s web interface and choose the ideal one.
iOS: Airport Utility
Update: We’ve been informed you can do this with Apple’s own AirPort Utility application. Enable and use the “Wi-Fi Scanner” feature inside the app.
RELATED:Jailbreaking Explained: What You Need to Know About Jailbreaking iPhones and iPads
This isn’t possible on iPhones and iPads. Apple restricts apps from accessing this Wi-Fi data directly from the hardware, so you can’t get an app like Android’s Wifi Analyzer on Apple’s App Store.
Mac Tool For Measure Wifi Strength
![App for measuring wifi strength App for measuring wifi strength](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lpDf3.png)
If you jailbreak, you can install an app like WiFi Explorer or WiFiFoFum from Cydia to get this functionality on your iPhone or iPad. These tools moved to Cydia after Apple booted them from the official App Store.
You probably wouldn’t want to go through the trouble of jailbreaking just for this, so use one of the other tools here instead.
How to Change Your Router’s Wi-Fi Channel
RELATED:10 Useful Options You Can Configure In Your Router’s Web Interface
Once you’ve found the least congested channel, changing the channel your router uses should be simple. First, log into your router’s web interface in your web browser. Click over to the Wi-Fi settings page, locate the “Wi-Fi Channel” option, and choose your new Wi-Fi channel. This option may be on some sort of “Advanced Settings” page, too.
RELATED:What’s the Difference Between 2.4 and 5-Ghz Wi-Fi (and Which Should I Use)?
If there are too many other nearby networks interfering with your signal, try getting a router that supports 5 GHz (like a “Dual Band” router). 5 GHz Wi-Fi channels are farther apart and won’t interfere with each other as much.
Mac Tool For Measuring Wifi Strength Analyzer
READ NEXTHow To Measure Wifi Signal Strength
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