AirMagnet Survey Reviews

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.

When you conduct an active survey and then want to use it for design work, it's actually not very useful. When you color the IP within the software and move it around, the person doesn't change. It's just a screenshot of the pattern it made when you did the survey, except you can put a point more in the way you'd expect the pattern to change. It doesn't get a true reflection of how the signals would truly propagate, instead only shows a screenshot of the pattern made during the survey.

Therefore, there is an area of improvement in the functionality of AirMagnet Survey when conducting an active survey and then using the results for design work.

I have been using AirMagnet Survey for seven years. I am currently using the latest version. I updated it about three weeks ago. 

It's very stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten. 

Scalability is high. I've had some very high performance with it.

The experience with the customer service and support team was good. 

Positive

The initial setup was very easy. 

It is a very expensive solution. It took me over two years to persuade the company to spend the money to buy the products.

Typically, I run a training course for engineers on how to use AirMagnet Survey.

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten because there are a few areas of improvement. But compared to what's out there, I do prefer the way it presents things graphically. As compared to Ekahau Site Survey, it seems to be a bit less blocky.

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.

If you have an older version of Air Magnet get caught up. It use to crash a lot. Version 9.1 is great. It’ll run all day with no issues (we always restart at lunch time). The only main improvement point I can make is offer free training

We have used it for about 9 months.

We use to have issues with crashing. If you do just get it updated. It’s worth it! It’s much better!

No issues. I’ve heard people say they’d like to do multiple floors on one survey but I like having the smaller surveys to work with anyway.

Tech support does a pretty good job. I’d give them a 8 or 9 out of ten.

We didn't have a previous solution.

Setup is a little complex, not because of any issues but because of the nature of the beast. You have to know a lot of different things to make it work properly, but that might just be because the software is complex. Not in a bad way; there's just a lot of things you have to know. A few more wizards for setup would help us not forget things. It’d be nice to have a wizard that asked if you are doing certain channels or both bands, etc.

The only reason we use this software is because the people that hire us to do the surveys require the software. We then found other ways to create revenue with it since it is very expensive.

My biggest complaint is their training shouldn't be so expensive. I personally think they should have online videos of free training and if you want to have a need for more complex training then pay for a class. Maybe a “how to understand reports” class would be nice! If they would give us some training, it wouldn't feel so complicated. Their training is so expensive, it's hard to be good at it without spending a lot more money and when you already spent $4000 on the software it’s not a good feeling to open the software and not know what to do next.

Get training or ask others since training is so expensive. Try YouTube videos and just ask others to get some details. If it’s too complex after watching YouTube then you may ask for training with your purchase or something like that. I wish we did!

• Planning module - I use it for wireless network deployment at the construction stage.
• Survey module - wireless coverage map and spectrum date integration is useful for checking the wireless coverage and performance.

Before using this product we performed a wireless project design with a rough understanding of how the wireless network should look like. Very often the final quantity of APs was not what was planned on paper. With AirMagnet Survey we can make a floor plan import. Now in v9.1 we have the possibility to even use the AutoCAD floor plan where the walls, doors, and window materials are designed by an engineer, and the survey can apply this characteristic by itself which decreases our time preparing the floor plans.

AirMagnet Survey then automatically calculates the required number of access points, which is quite close to the final quantity. After deploying the access points we make a coverage map report for the customer including data about interference, physical data rates, noise level, signal noise ratio coverage, user capacity, and throughput.

It helps us to fully support 802.11 a/b/n/g/ac standards.

AirMagnet Survey is very useful for designing and deploying wireless 802.11n/a/b/g/ac projects, in any company from small offices to large campus buildings.

We have been using AirMagnet Survey about five years, since it was from Fluke Networks and now it is a Netscout brand.

Yes, normally it happens with products from different vendors. We have had a problem with the reporting module, as it can't put the full size picture of a floor plan in the report. After we initiated several support cases these problems were solved with the new release.

A year ago there was a problem with huge floor plan pictures which was hanging up the software during reporting. It was solved with the release update.

Technical support is one of the important things that customers appreciate, and Netscout have some very qualified engineers who help very rapidly with every question.

Yes we used the Ekahau Site Survey, which is also a good quality product, but they are still growing and have lots of bugs. These guys try to do their best and it looks like they are good professionals on their job. We chose the AirMagnet Survey because it was recommended by Cisco, also we like the functionality of it and of course the main reason was the Russian localization of reports which is essential in our country.

AirMagnet is a very stable and time-tested product, as proved by the fact that the world's leading IT companies use AirMagnet Survey and if we look at the release notes we can see a lot of new features instead of bug fixes as in the Ekahau Site Survey.

Installation is very simple, you just need to register the software key on the AirMagnet web account, then download and install the software on your PC, every time clicking the "Next" button.

The price is not so high compared with other products of similar quality. My recommendation for customers is to periodically renew the support contract, because some software releases which contain new interesting features can be downloaded only if you maintain an active support contract. As this product now belongs to Netscout I'm sure they will develop it to be much more interesting and useful.

Yes, before purchasing we requested evaluation software of each AirMagnet product: AirMagnet Survey Pro, AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer, AirMagnet Spectrum XT.

Also we compared it with Ekahau Site Survey as it is the only quality product with the same functionality, but our purchasing decision was AirMagnet Survey.

My advice, before purchasing request an evaluation license to test it and then choose the product which is stable, useful, and very well known in the IT industry.

The support for multi-floor surveys.

It allows us to prepare more real designs. Later, we validate them with actual surveys.

Less time consumed doing the real surveys.

Since 2012.

The main issue was when you define obstacles for the wi-fi signal, you cannot define the height of them. For example, if you have a brick wall of 1.7 meters (6 ft.) high and on top of it a 60 cm. (2 ft.) window, you are only able to define a 2.20 meters brick wall. For example, this setup is very common in schools where they prefer to have the wi-fi router outside of the classrooms.

In general, it is very stable, most of the issues were with Windows stability.

No.

An eight out of 10.

An eight out of 10.

We acquired this solution to work with Ruckus Wireless eq., the AirMagnet version that we used was a OEM for Ruckus.

It is very straightforward to implement, the only issue is if you change wi-fi for the MAC address.

In-house

Not applicable.

This version was okay in price when it was dedicated to only one vendor. The moment we began needing more of the vendor's support, the cost became very high; we switched to another solution.

Aruba and VRF Plan.

I recommend doing a comparison between the newer version of AirMagnet and Ekahau before purchasing.

The integration with the spectrum analysis is a real time saver.

Being able to run multiple wireless adapters allows us to collect more data in different, more efficient ways.

Those features are valuable, as is the ability to generate reports out of it pretty quickly.

I'd really like to see integration with the cloud, being able to have a central repository for data. If I have multiple engineers working on a project simultaneously, it might be nice to have all of that automatically backed up into one comprehensive centrally managed project file online.

I would definitely like to see more ability to generate custom reports. The reports in there are great but don't always have the flexibility to allow me to bring in my own template and expedite our report writing process even further.

I'd also like to see if there’s a way to incorporate multiple adapters or even more types of wireless; maybe not just 802.11 but maybe an LTE survey or Bluetooth low-energy survey, multiple different wireless platforms. If it was in fact able to support a lot of other Wi-Fi services, that would be a great feature.

I have been using it for six to seven years.

It has not been entirely stable. There have definitely been some bumps in the road. In the past, various releases have had their issues, including the 8.8 release. It definitely had some bugs. That was, as I understand it, a complete re-build of the platform: new dates and structure - moving from a flat file to more of a database file structure for the data. So far, in the latest release, version 9.0, which we've been on for about three and a half weeks, everything's been pretty peachy.

I don't really have another alternative right now that I think is better. Scalability-wise, this is top of the line for the market at the moment.

Overall, the majority of their support engineers are exceptional. Especially when it comes to being able to react or assist us on something that's extremely critical through an ongoing project for us. Any time that we have engineers in the field burning money, AirMagnet, Fluke, now NETSCOUT, have always had engineers that are willing to tackle an issue in real time.

Our company has used AirMagnet exclusively since we launched about three years ago. Professionally, I used other products like Ekahau and Motorola Wireless LANPlanner.

We choose AirMagnet because we all agreed it was the best solution at the time. Then, a lot of our partner organizations required it as a standard, so we could all operate on the same page.

Initial setup is pretty darn straightforward. I've run into some issues with licensing. During an upgrade, it periodically tends to lose its license, which is an extra step you have to go through to re-download and install that license over again.

The more copies you can buy at once, the better deal you're going to get, which goes for just about any product out there.

Find a way to standardize, especially the adapters and the hardware being used. I just find that having consistent results in data is comparative. If you are using this for an organization like ours, where we have multiple engineers all working together, having a standardized hardware platform makes a big difference.

It's as good as it gets, in my opinion right now, and nothing is ever perfect.

• Planning module: I use it for wireless network deployment during construction stages.
• Survey module: Provides a wireless coverage map and spectrum data integration. This is useful for checking wireless coverage and performance.

Before using this product, we did wireless project designs using a rough estimate of how the wireless networks will appear. Very often, the final quantity was not the same as it was planned on paper.

With AirMagnet Survey, we can make a floor plan import. We can use AutoCAD floor plans which include the walls, doors, windows, and materials designed by engineers. The survey can apply these characteristics by itself, which decreases the time necessary to prepare floor plans.

The solution automatically calculates the required number of access points, which is very close to the final quantity actually needed.

After deploying the access points, we make a coverage map report for customers. The report includes the data about interference, physical data rates, noise level, signal noise ratio coverage, user capacity, and throughput.

The tool helps us to fully support 802.11 a/b/n/g/ac standards.

AirMagnet Survey very useful for designing and deploying wireless 802.11n/a/b/g/ac projects, in any companies from small offices to large campus buildings.

We have used this solution for about five years.

No, it is very simply deploying.

Yes, normally it happens with any product of different vendors. We have had a problem with reporting module, it can't put the full size picture of floor plan in report. After we initiated several support cases these problems was solved with new release.

A year ago, there was a problem with huge floor plan pictures which were causing the software to hang during reporting. It was solved with the release update.

Special for existing customers they have an AirMagnet Account, where you can see all yours registered products and any documents for it.
Also if there is a new release, you can download it from there. As for me there is all nesessary and usefull information.

Technical support it is one of important things that customers appreciate. NETSCOUT has very qualified engineers who help very fast with every question.

We used Ekahau Site Survey. It is also a good quality product, but they are still growing and have a lot of bugs. These guys try to do their best and it looks like they are professional.

We chose AirMagnet Survey because it was recommended by Cisco. We like the functionality of it. Of course, the main reason was the localization of reports into Russian, which we need in our country.

AirMagnet is a very stable and time-tested product. It proves that the world's leading IT companies use AirMagnet Survey. When we look at the release notes, we can see a lot of new features instead of bug fixes, as is the case with Ekahau Site Survey.

Installation is very simple. You just need to register the software key on an AirMagnet web account, then download and install the software on your PC. This is all done by just clicking the "Next" button.

The price is not so high compared with other products with the same quality level. My recommendation is for customers to periodically renew your support contract. Some software releases contain new and interesting features that you can only download if you have an active support contract.

Because this product now belongs to NETSCOUT, I'm sure they will develop more interesting and useful features.

Before purchasing this solution, we evaluated the software of each AirMagnet product: AirMagnet Survey PRO, AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer, and AirMagnet Spectrum XT.

We compared it with Ekahau Site Survey, as it is only quality product with the same functionality. However, our purchasing decision was AirMagnet Survey.

Before purchasing the solution, request an evaluation license to test it. Think carefully and then chose a product which is stable, useful, and very famous in the IT industry.

I am a consultant and I work with this product at a high level. It is used for spectrum analysis and wireless surveying.

The most valuable features are the survey, spectrum analysis, and reporting. 

The surveying features are in need of improvement, along with general usability. For example, they should import functions from other products that make things easier from a planner's point of view.

The antenna options should be enhanced.

It takes a little while to render the coverage maps.

The price could be lower.

The updates are few and far between, so they should release them more regularly.

I have been using AirMagnet Survey for ten years.

Overall, the stability is not too bad.

Technical support is a little bit slow to respond. I would say that they are about average.

This product is very expensive.

Our license is coming up for renewal and we're planning to have a close look at Ekahau. We will be comparing the two and possibly look to change.

My advice for anybody who is considering AirMagnet is to have a look at Ekahau Survey, as well. This is something that we plan on doing before our next renewal.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

We use the AirMagnet Survey tool to predetermine where we need to place wireless access points in our buildings and within construction areas.

It's been about three months since we've used it, and we just purchased an OptiView XG tablet from NetScout that has that installed on it. It's very pricey, but my boss gave me the money to buy one, so I was happy about that. It cost us about $36,000, but we were able to afford it, so life is good. But we have not used that tablet yet. We're still using an older version on our laptops, so we haven't made the switch internally. We're hoping to do that in the new year.

The product takes away the guessing. It gives us hard evidence on how to engineer and determine where we need to place wireless access coverage or points for optimal coverage. We use the tool to help us engineer our wireless network.

It's been working for us, so I'm good. It does everything we ask it to do.

We've been using it for about five years.

Occasionally, it crashes or locks up. Every now and then, it just stops working and we reboot the system and then go again. It hasn't happened enough that we've opened a ticket on it.

We have not used technical support. We just reboot our system and move on. I'd be more concerned if it happened frequently.

We have never used a different solution.

It was straightforward and easy. The training piece is an ongoing issue, in that the software does have a lot of functions. Getting comfortable with all those functions has been time consuming. We only uswe the software maybe four or five times a year, so we just chalk it up to not using the software enough.

We evaluated Ekahau.

I would definitely say that as far as implementing, get a demo, run it, and make sure it will work in your environment. Then, if you're comparing it with another product, do your homework and run your tests. But, we found for our needs, the AirMagnet Survey tool was the best product.