AirMagnet Survey Reviews

We're not using AirMagnet primarily for predictive analysis—it's mostly checking signals in real-time. The vast majority of our usage is in hotels or small and medium-sized businesses. Every time they make changes or have a problem, we run through them. Occasionally we work with large ones, like the 1.2 million-square-foot Walgreens facility at their main distribution center in Madison. That was much larger, but it's rare. 

After AirMagnet is installed on the system, we can survey the average three-story hotel in 45 minutes. It probably takes three or four hours to finish the analysis and write up a report. The general managers at a hotel don't really care about much of the information we provide. They only want to know what the problem is and see the heat map showing where the dead zones are. We tell them if there's a bottleneck and have the metrics to back us up if anybody asks.

We typically run settings at -65 dB as the low end and -25 dB for the signal-to-noise ratio. It's a little better than the industry standard, which is -67 dB and -20 dB, but it ensures we have top-of-the-line signal coverage when we're doing the survey. My company does engineering and manufacturing, but there are 25 of us in the IT department, and three are level five. We can do anything and assist if needed. 

Most of our guys are level three, so they're good to run around and do stuff on their own. Sometimes, they might need some help with some higher-end stuff. They're doing a lot of intermediate work, such as running cables or fiber optics, so they don't typically have the higher-end tools that the three of us use, like the nXG and OptiView XG tablets. They have a lot of cable testers, including some higher-end ones.

If they're assisting us or going out to do a quick survey for us, we usually will log into their laptop, set it up and make sure that everything's calibrated properly for them. After everything's calibrated and set up, they have no problems doing the survey themselves. I'd like some of them to get a little bit better at it, but a lot of that comes down to how many times we are contracted each year to perform heat maps and pull metrics for facilities. Usually, that's only seven to 15 times a year. More often than not, the three of us with all the tools can take care of those jobs on our own.

The addition of the AirMapper software on the nXG and our AirCheck G2s has helped a lot because we're mostly not drilling down into the data. Local managers only need to see the coverage on their end and whether there are performance bottlenecks. These things are easy enough for us to ascertain with iPerf. 

We can go in and spot-check with those devices quickly.  The only time we bother using the full versions of the software off of a laptop or our OptiView XG tablets is when they want to pay for a full-blown survey. 

We use AirMagnet Survey, for site verifications after the wireless system has been installed. We conduct pre and post-install surveys with it.

We have reduced the use since now our customers require Ekahau, a competitor. AirMagnet doesn't currently support Wi-Fi 6E. We use it for certain customers who don't require Ekahau.

The AirMagnet Survey allows you to see the list of APs in the live view. It only supports certain adapters, which can be limiting, but it's also beneficial because these adapters are more comparable to real-life devices like laptops. With Ekahau, Sidekick needs to be used for full features, but I find the Sidekick too strong, which can hamper results. Therefore, I prefer AirMagnet's approach because the adapters provide more realistic readings.

I use almost all AirMagnet features. For the survey, I use PRO. I use Planner for planning tools. I use WiFi Analyzer for troubleshooting, and XT for the troubleshooting, as well.

The predictive survey has improved the way my organization functions. I use their planner when making the walls. You can create a real-world environment and then come up with the plan for APs. Once everything is in place or if a real-world survey is needed, then the active survey or passive survey is used for that purpose.

For the WiFi Analyzer, if there is trouble in a wireless environment, I use it to see the signal interference, the co-channel interference, the devices, and those kinds of things.

For spectrum analysis, if issues are reported, to check the overall health of the wireless, I use Spectrum XT.

Before AirMagnet, most of the survey work was guesswork, depending on the expertise of the engineer. They used to place the APs, and then go back and do the survey. So, when AirMagnet Survey first became available, that became a lot easier. Before that, there was another tool called Ekahau Site Survey. With AirMagnet, you have all of the solutions, all of the tools, from the one platform.

I have been using AirMagnet for clients to do WiFi surveys. This is pretty much an AP-on-a-Stick survey. Right now, I'm on a deployment in which we are using it for a validation.

Everything about the AirMagnet is useful. It's good for work, giving us our SSID and throughput readings for the AC that is currently available. We have been using it primarily for the 2.4 and 5 GHz to create standard heat maps for their standard coverage.

I use AirMagnet Survey heavily for the work that I do. My responsibility is to make sure that we have good coverage in our facilities. I have also used it in the past to do the site survey for placement of APs in a hospital.

I use it heavily, primarily for troubleshooting issues where there are complaints of inadequate coverage in an area. The product itself provides us a visual tool that we can use to show our clients that the wireless is either working or not working in that area. We use it to make adjustments, if we have to, to the coverage.

Spectrum XT running at the same time during survey mode: It allows me to investigate after the survey to see what was causing the interference and mitigate it before installing the access points.

The reports that are generated are very good and a customer can make since of them.

The ability to run both 2.4 GHz and 5GHz active surveys at the same time for 802.11n applications is a real time saver you don’t have to walk the floor twice to gather the data you need.

Another valuable feature is the ability to use CAD drawings and to select layers within the CAD drawing to cut down on clutter and make the CAD files easier to work with.

The ability to tie the license to a wireless adapter MAC or the MAC of the computer is a nice feature especially if you want to use the software on more than one computer.

AirMagnet allows our organization to relatively quickly provide our customers with a budgetary solution that meets their business needs.

I mostly use it for designing wireless networks, especially for large corporate customers.

The predictive survey is the most valuable feature. I use it quite often.

The interactive mapping tool: If you have a map, it'll scale the map to be accurate. You literally just click where you are as you are walking. It's very simple. Then, from that mapping, you can run reports and get a lot of information.

Bandwidth Monitoring: They have an option to set up iPerf on a server and it will check bandwidth as you do your survey to make sure your users have a quality WiFi experience.

Reports: The reports are amazing and very easy to run. At first you may need some assistance understanding what to do with the data but that’s just the technical part you will learn.

Android Mobile APP: They have a version of this that can run on Android. For quick surveys that you can later import into Air Magnet this can be really handy for your field technicians to share or use for troubleshooting.

We survey hospitals, schools and any other business that would like a survey. We sell our service and it creates another avenue for revenue.