Apr 11, 2018 Screenshot 2 – Netspot Survey. This application is a highly professional Wi-Fi signal booster, troubleshooter and Survey App available for both Windows and Mac versions. The free version of NetSpot Wi-Fi signal booster app comes with few restrictions. With the free version, you are allowed to work on the only single zone. AlternativeTo is a free service that helps you find better alternatives to the products you love and hate. The site is made by Ola and Markus in Sweden, with a lot of help from our friends and colleagues in Italy, Finland, USA, Colombia, Philippines, France and contributors from all over the world. That's right, all the lists of alternatives are crowd-sourced, and that's what makes the data. Runs on a MacBook (macOS 10.10+) or any laptop (Windows 7/8/10) with a standard 802.11a/b/g/n/ac wireless network adapter. Get NetSpot ★★★★ ★ 4.8 rank, based on 969 user reviews Version 2.12. Submit your review. Wi-Fi Surveys: NetSpot creates WI-Fi survey projects and transforms them into interactive heatmaps with detailed information on all surveyed wireless networks in every point of the map.
The complexity of WiFi networks is constantly growing, and so does our reliance on them. A WiFi site survey can help you ensure that your WiFi network is in top condition, ready to support your personal or business needs.
According to Gartner, the average cost of IT downtime is $5,600 per minute. That’s a huge number, and all businesses that rely on WiFi internet access should remember it because it makes the cost of wireless site survey software seem utterly insignificant, especially considering that free survey software is often enough to optimize a WiFi network and reduce downtime.
Without a WiFi site survey, it’s very difficult — if not impossible — to know that you have sufficient WiFi coverage and capacity to meet your needs. Insufficient coverage means that not all clients will be able to roam freely and connect to the internet from anywhere. And if your WiFi network doesn’t meet your capacity needs in peak locations, you may deal with disconnected clients and slow speeds.
Designing a WiFi network without wireless site survey software is akin to building a house without a plan. If you’re experienced enough and luck is on your side, you might end up with something that satisfies your needs, but it’s very unlikely that there wasn’t a better way how to complete the project. By performing a WiFi site survey prior to deployment, you can ensure that you’re deploying the right number of access points in the right locations to keep your costs down.
When employees have access to a fast and stable internet, they become more productive, and the same is true for home users. The difference between a website loading in one second and two seconds may not seem significant, but that’s only until you multiply the time saved by the total number of internet users and look a year into the future.
Wireless site survey software can reveal rogue access points set up by malicious hackers to steal personal information from unsuspecting users. It can also help you limit the reach of your wireless network to ensure that it doesn’t leave your building and allow someone who you can’t even see to breach it.
Both at home and in the office, it can be helpful to know exactly what the range of your wireless network is. In the home, it can helpful to know in advance just where you will be able to use your laptop, without having to wait until you try it at a time your desperately need to be online. This is also true to some extend in the office, but wireless site surveys in the work environment are more useful when it comes to working out how to position repeaters and other networking equipment.
In both circumstances, NetSpot is a valuable tool that enables you to create a visual map of network coverage quickly and easily, and in a form that can be understood by anyone. After loading a suitable map into the program you can then start performing a wifi survey by walking around with your MackBook while NetSpot gather information about signal strength.
The data that is collected can be used to create a heatmap of network coverage, but there are a number of different visual styles to choose from. The creation of the map requires virtually no effort, and in next to no time you can find out just how your wireless signal spreads throughout the building and check to see which wireless channel might be the best to use.
Of course, the app is not just useful for helping to determine the range of your wireless network, but it can also be useful in tracking down sources of interference that might be impacting on performance.
Note the free version can only analyze one project and is free only for non-commercial use.
What's new in 2.12 (see changelog for more)?
- Added: Support for 802.11ax (aka WiFi 6).
- Added: Support for WPA3.
- Improved: The vendors list has been updated.
- Fixed: Details graphs for networks broadcasting on 5 GHz.
Useful but not essential, the visual nature of NetSpot is appealing and the app is easy to use.