Ekahau Site Survey Reviews

I use the solution for conducting surveys of large-scale businesses and healthcare institutes.

The solution is a reliable survey application.

Presently, we can only integrate the solution with Mac OS. It has been costly for us and affects the decision process too. They should provide integration with Windows as well.

I have been using the solution for two and a half years.

It is a very stable solution.

The solution's support team works well.

Neutral

The solution's initial setup was straightforward. It took 30 minutes for the process to complete.

We took help from a third-party vendor to implement the solution.

The solution is less costly than iBwave. You need to buy a separate license per user. The additional costs are based on the use cases.

I advise others to learn about the different functions of wired and wireless versions of the solution. Also, it would help if they installed the solution on an iPad Pro with a LiDAR scanner for autopilot feature to run smoothly.

I rate the solution as a seven.

• Planning.
• "What-if" scenarios.
• Spectrum analyzer integration allows reviewing measurements on the survey paths.
• iPerf integration allows conducting a throughput continuous test along the survey path.

Planning design allows us to provide faster quotes to the customer. We take a safety margin but in the end, we are very close to the quote and we save time and travel.

The SpecAn and the throughput data: We include them in the survey report that we give to the customer. That's a great added-value compared to what we were doing before. Also, during the project closure meeting, we can show all the recorded survey data and it supports our recommendations to the customers.

I wish we could have an "offline" version of Ekahau in order to give the customer some kind of interactive report where he could find all the measured values.

What I mean is that today, we can only give the customer a PDF or paper report. So they can't see detailed values as when you move the mouse over an AP. I expect to give the customer a kind of read-only file where he could explore the site survey.

I have used it for five years.

We have not encountered any deployment issues. Deployment is smooth and easy, in less than 10 minutes of time.

We did encounter stability issues with a previous version. The customer support team took my case with a very high priority and a few days later, a patch was released. Our current version is very stable.

We have not encountered any scalability issues, compared to my first years of use; I've added the SpecAn feature, the GPS.

New APs are added regularly for the predictive feature.

N/A: Initial purchase and yearly renewal are made through a reseller.

Technical support is 10/10. They're fast to answer and solve your issue.

We previously used AirMagnet some years ago. We changed because of the slowness of the software.

Initial setup is straightforward. The only option is for the GPS feature. When starting ESS for the first time, you need an internet connection to validate the licence.

An in-house team implemented it.

Choose the PRO + Spectrum version. The Basic version doesn't have the planning features.

It's a great product; regular updates make it dynamic and bring us new possibilities.

• Importing DXF/DWG floor plans
• Autoplanner
• Customizable report templates

Importing more than 200 floor plans of 50 buildings has been easily accomplished because layers could be deselected before importing.

The Autoplanner feature gave us the opportunity to sketch a channel grid as well as the raw placements of access points.

It provides easy reporting using our own report templates.

• Batch reporting for large projects with many project files

I have used it since 2008.

Technical support is excellent; quick feedback and appropriate solutions.

Setup is done very easily.

If in doubt, buy the Professional Edition to have all features activated (e.g., 3D planning). Have NIC-300 USB stick (multiple NICs recommended for several measurements in parallel) as well. Otherwise, you will not have the opportunity to measure SNR.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated AirMagnet and NetPlanner.

From my experience, Ekauhau has always been very interested in improving their software by listening to users' demands and requirements. From my point of view, they successfully ease the complex process of designing wireless LAN on a professional level.

The scalability of the solution is good.

I am having problems importing maps to Ekahau Site Survey. Importing is one of the first steps in using the solution and it is getting stuck. The problem could be that our maps are large with many layers.

I have been using Ekahau Site Survey for approximately one month.

I rate the stability of the Ekahau Site Survey a six out of ten.

Ekahau Site Survey is scalable.

In my company, my network team of less than 10 is using the solution.

We have had a problem with the solution and the support has not figured out how to solve it.

The initial setup of the Ekahau Site Survey is easy.

I rate Ekahau Site Survey a seven out of ten.

We use Ekahau for site surveys to demonstrate the quality of Wifi networks. We are deploying it for our clients, who usually have a private cloud.

I like Ekahau's interface and the reports it can generate.

They should improve the iPad application because it's unstable. Also, Ekahau could be better integrated with other vendors. 

I have been using Ekahau for two years.

Ekahau is stable on the laptop, but the iPad app isn't stable.

Ekahau is scalable.

I rate Ekahau support seven out of 10. It could be improved.

Deploying Ekahau is medium difficulty. We need two specialists for deployment. 

I rate Ekahau Site Survey nine out of 10. It's an original product that could be the standard on the market. It has a good price point. 

Importing DWG files that identify the types of walls, doors, glass, and other structural materials is valuable. The other useful tool is the ability to enter the exact model number of an access point to get accurate planning information.

We can do a predictive survey in half the time it used to take, now that we can import CAD files and identify wall types.

• Being able to import BIM files

I have used it for five years.

We have not encountered any deployment issues.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

Customer service is excellent; always there to answer questions or assist with an issue; very open to feedback on how to improve the product.

Technical support is excellent.

We did not previously use a different solution.

The setup was straight forward.

An in-house team implemented it.

ROI was less than a year.

This product is priced aggressively compared to other products; well worth the investment.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated AirMagnet.

I use Ekahau Site Survey for heat mapping wireless coverage.

Ekahau lets you create heat maps without doing the initial survey. It makes the task easier. 

When a version goes out of support, sometimes the newer version isn't already available. There should be an option to import, and maybe access points can be added to the other version as well. 

Most features are there, but the network adapter support should be better. Ekahau should support all laptops and versions. There's an issue with the driver too.

I've used Ekahau for the last two years.

Installing Ekahau is straightforward. You install it on a Windows machine, and that's it.

I did the installation by myself.

The pricing is quite expensive. Not all companies can afford it

I've tried NetScout and Acrylic. We're comparing them, and we'll buy them if they meet our needs.

I rate Ekahau Site Survey eight out of 10. Go for it if you can afford it.

Recent upgrades allows opacity view on the heat maps, allowing the floor plan to have better visibility. What I like is that Ekahau regularly takes the advice of real users and categorizes these point and adds them in product version releases. In other words, Ekahau really listens to their customers!

One area would be to allow several files to be opened and the ability to close only one of the files.

At present, if you have several files open, you must close the entire program to close the one file. A workaround is to open a new instance of ESS, but would be nice if you do not need to do this.

When a user has two surveys done at different times (Survey1 and Survey2), and at a later time, wants to open both of them at the same time, ESS allows a user to do that. However, the software does not allow you to close one of the surveys unless you completely close out ESS.

This is not a big issue, as I mention the workaround is to open up each survey in a new instance of ESS. IOW, to ESS and open it, then select open Survey1. Then open another instance of ESS and select Survey2.

It is more of a convenience feature. For example, if you have two MS Word docs open, you can to File/Close and close one of the docs. In ESS, you cannot do that yet.

3+ years

Deployment does take about 20-30 seconds, as it is a large program, so that's acceptable.

No.

From small to large surveys, Ekahau seems to function well. I have heard that very large surveys (e.g. 20-floor building) can cause issues, but I have not personally experienced that.

9 out of 10. They listen and respond to you, sometimes in a couple of hours. Excellent customer service.

9 out of 10. Customer service seems to link straight to technical support and issue resolution is fast and sometimes in less than a day.

Yes, easy setup with the wizard.

I have done both. Vendor team sent registration code, copy and paste and setup was fast.

Site survey software is not inexpensive. But it is vital for the WLAN professional. Call Ekahau and get a trial version and if pricing is an issue, ask them what they can do.

I have used trial versions of all leading site survey software. All have a bit of a learning curve. (AirMagnet, Tamosoft, iBwave).

Just a customer service story: I needed an AP listed for a predictive model that was not listed in ESS. I sent a request to have this one added to ESS and within three hours, the response came back with the file I needed to copy and paste into ESS to use this AP model! Three hours! Unbelievably responsive and outstanding customer service. Ekahau listens and responds to their customers!