AirMagnet Survey Pro 8.0 Uses Two Sensors to Speed WiFi Survey and Planning

by Andrew Garcia

AirMagnet supports two adapters for use as sensors in Survey Pro 8.0. AirMagnet sells a kit, including two Proxim 802.11n a/b/g/n adapters and a USB hub, for $345.

With Version 8.0, I could conduct active and passive surveys at the same time. Here, we see the survey process midstream, as I walk and point my way around the building, collecting WiFi signal information.

I could run an iPerf test and a passive test at the same time. The iPerf test uses an active association to an access point, measuring upload and download performance during the survey walkabout.

Shown here are iPerf results for the 5GHz (left) and 2.4GHz (right) download performance of the network in our San Francisco offices. Users can view upload performance separately and can hover over a spot on the heat map to see localized performance results.

I could also view PHY data rate information from the heat map. Here we see the 5GHz (left) and 2.4GHz (right) data rates culled during the iPerf test.

I could edit my custom report to personalize contact details and the logo.

I could customize report content as well, allowing me to omit entire sections or focus the report on specific kinds of information.

As with previous versions of Survey Pro, I also had access to a series of canned reports.