Wireless internet is everywhere these days and you could have several WiFi capable devices connected to your own wireless network. Because of that it’s important the WiFi router is placed in the best available location to give the longest range and strongest signal to as many devices as possible. If the router is placed in a poor location the signal could be weak, intermittent or cause constant dropouts.
WiFi Signal allows you to obtain easy access to your Wi-Fi connection details such as SSID, BSSID, channel, transmit rate, signal (RSSI) and noise levels, as well as Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) to. Jul 06, 2019 Like Mac and iOS, you’ll find dBm measurements listed under the RSSI entry. On Mac, you don’t need to download any program or app if you want to measure the connected network. Hold the option key and click on the Wi-Fi symbol. You’ll see dBm measurements in the RSSI entry. How to Improve Wi-Fi Signal Strength.
![Mac Software To Measure Wifi Signal Strength Mac Software To Measure Wifi Signal Strength](/uploads/1/2/6/1/126124294/292863278.jpg)
There are many factors that can affect the quality and strength of a WiFi network connection. These include walls, floors, ceilings, electrical appliances, anything emitting radiation or electromagnetism, and of course distance to the router. Windows and most bundled WiFi software allows you to see how good the current wireless signal is. To get a better idea how the signal is behaving and whether it gets affected by other factors it’s a good idea to monitor the signal strength over a period of time.
Watching how your WiFi signal behaves over several minutes or even hours could help identify if the current location for it is ideal or causing problems. Here we list 5 free tools that show a graph for your wireless signal so you can watch it over a period of time to see how it behaves.
1. NetSpotNetSpot is a free wireless network signal analysis and troubleshooting tool available for both Mac and Windows computers. In addition to a standard WiFi discovery and monitoring section it also has a site survey feature that allows for the relative network signal strengths to be plotted onto a map of your building or local area.
The program starts in Discover mode which shows available wireless networks along with some general statistics. Double click on the target network to open the details window. This has a Signal tab which shows a graph of the signal strength over a period of time, the last 5, 30, or 60 minutes can be shown in the window at once. Also available is a Tabular Data window that shows the same data as the graph but in text form.
The frequency of the signal strength scanning can be either left at the default of 5 seconds or changed to 10, 30 or 60 seconds. Do be aware that NetSpot crashed for us on first run but appeared to work fine after a system reboot.
Download NetSpot
2. inSSIDer
The sad thing about inSSIDer is it stopped being free and became a shareware application from version 3 onwards. Luckily version 2 remains free and open source although it’s not had any updates since 2012 and compiled versions with the free source code are a bit hard to find.
After installing and running the program click the Time Graph tab to see the signal strength graphs for all found wireless networks. Uncheck those you don’t want to appear in the graph display to be left with the signals to be monitored. The display shows signal strength over a period of 5 minutes and any selected SSID will be shown in bold. Although you cannot view the signal for more than the 5 minutes you can right click on the graph and copy an image of it to the clipboard for a snapshot record. This can in turn be pasted into a paint program.
Download inSSIDer 2.1
3. Homedale
Homedale has a big advantage over the other tools here because it’s the only one that is completely portable, which many people prefer. The program is well laid out and easy to use. Besides the signal graphs you can also get your location at the click of a button from a mapping service such as Google.
Monitoring a wireless network is a simple case of going into the Access Points tab and double clicking on the access point. Its icon will turn red to signify it has been selected and you will be shown the current signal strength graph. The graph itself refreshes every 2 seconds by default and shows about 20 minutes worth of signal history. The refresh rate can be changed from the Options tab to 1, 5, 10, 30 or 60 seconds. Right click to save the current graph as an image or start logging the history data to a text file.
Homedale also supports a few command line switches so you can launch it to start monitoring and logging a specified network automatically. Use /? in a Command Prompt to get a list of arguments that can be used. For example the following will create a log.txt and add a signal strength entry every 3 seconds for the SSID Raymondcc_WiFi.
Homedale -s Raymondcc_WiFi -l log.txt -r 3000
Download Homedale
4. Acrylic Wi-Fi Home
The Home version of Acrylic Wi-Fi is free for personal use and has enough to show a signal strength graph for monitoring or troubleshooting. One useful feature missing and only available in the paid Pro version is the ability to alter the timeline of the signal strength graph from the default of 5 minutes to 1, 3 or 10 minutes.
On install and launch click Options (3 horizontal lines) and choose Advanced Mode to make the graph full width and remove the useless Pro only network quality pane. To remove a wireless network from the graph click on the color block to the left of its name in the SSID list. The graph is colored into good and not so good strengths, highlighting an SSID will bold it for easier viewing, Microsoft .NET 4.5 is required which will need to have been installed on Windows 7 or Vista. Visual C++ 2012 Redistributables are also required.
Download Acrylic Wi-Fi Home
5. Vistumbler
This tool has a few quite advanced options such as GPS support, live Google Earth tracking and a number of experimental features. More standard functions include getting WiFi signal strength and information as well as the ability to audibly speak out the signal strength to you.
You don’t really have to do much to get the strength information after installation, simply click Scan APs and click on Graph 1 or Graph 2. Then click on a wireless network in the list to populate the graphs. The first is a simple line that measure signal strength over a few minutes. The second is a bar graph (pictured above) which shows the signal strength history for around 11 minutes. Changing the Refresh loop in Settings > Misc Settings to another value from the default of 1000ms (1 second) will lengthen or shorten the graph history time.
Download Vistumbler
We did also look at Xirrus WiFi Inspector and NetSurveyor although both don’t log wireless signals for very long. Xirrus also requires you to fill in an online form to get the download link from the website.
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Tried netspot inssider and homedale. It seems that homedale is the only one who will log signal stregth for long period of times (indefinitely?) in the log file.
Go to access points and double click your router
go to access point graph right click and ask to log, you need to specify a file name
go to access point graph right click and ask to log, you need to specify a file name
The log file is very simple and has the format yy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss: .
you can select the whole text, past it to, say, google sheets and write in an empty cell the formula =min(b:b), it’ll show the min power value of the log file
you can select the whole text, past it to, say, google sheets and write in an empty cell the formula =min(b:b), it’ll show the min power value of the log file
Windows Wifi Signal Strength Meter
ReplyHomedale create a file named oui.txt inside its residing folder which is very annoying.
Every time you close the program you have to delete this file manually, it consumes
about 2M of disk space.
ReplyEvery time you close the program you have to delete this file manually, it consumes
about 2M of disk space.
Thanks looks well done and there are some other nice utilities at the site.
ReplyThaks for good Proggy
ReplyLeave a Reply
On Windows 10, when you connect a device to the internet to work from home or office using a Wi-Fi adapter, the quality of the signal will dictate the overall performance of the connection. In part, it's because wireless technology uses radio waves to connect a device to the access point, and similar to other radio signals, it has limited range and problems with interference as well as traveling through solid objects (such as walls).
Understanding the signal strength of the Wi-Fi connection on your laptop or desktop PC can help to determine if the slow connectivity is a signal problem and not an issue with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or wireless access point (usually, your router).
You may be able to find many third-party tools, but Windows 10 includes several ways to check the signal strength of a wireless connection from the taskbar and using the Settings app, Control Panel, taskbar, Command Prompt, and even using PowerShell.
In this Windows 10 guide, you'll learn five ways to determine the signal strength of your Wi-Fi connection.
How to check Wi-Fi signal strength using taskbar
To determine the signal strength of a Wi-Fi connection on Windows 10, use these steps:
- Click the network icon in the notification area of the taskbar.
- See the wireless icon next to the network. (The higher the number of solid bars means the stronger the signal.)Source: Windows Central
When looking at the wireless icon, one solid bar indicates that the signal is weak, two bars mean the signal is acceptable, and three and four bars represent the best signal you can get.
How to check Wi-Fi signal strength using Settings
To find out the wireless signal strength using Settings, use these steps:
- Open Settings.
- Click on Network & Internet.
- Click on Status.
- Under the 'Network status' section, the wireless icon will indicate the current signal strength. (The higher the number of solid bars, the stronger the signal.)Source: Windows Central
Alternatively, you can also check the signal strength from the Wi-Fi settings page.
Check signal quality from Wi-Fi settings
To check the wireless signal from the Wi-Fi settings, use these steps:
- Open Settings.
- Click on Wi-Fi.
- Under the Wi-Fi section, the signal strength will be represented on the wireless icon. (The higher the number of solid bars, the stronger the signal.)Source: Windows Central
Once you complete the steps, you'll have a better understanding of wireless connection quality to the access point.
How to check Wi-Fi signal strength using Control Panel
To find out the signal quality of a wireless connection using Control Panel, use these steps:
- Open Control Panel.
- Click on Network and Internet.Source: Windows Central
- Click on Network and Sharing Center.Source: Windows Central
- Under the 'View your active networks' section, the wireless icon next to 'Connections' will indicate the signal quality.Source: Windows Central
- (Optional) Click the connection name to check the signal quality as well as speed, SSID, and other information.Source: Windows Central
After you complete the steps, you'll know if you have a strong or weak Wi-Fi connection.
How to check Wi-Fi signal strength using Command Prompt
To check the signal strength of a Wi-Fi connection using Command Prompt, use these steps:
- Open Start.
- Search for Command Prompt and click the top result to open the app.
- Type the following command to view the Wi-Fi signal strength and press Enter:
netsh wlan show interfaces
- See the Signal field to determine the signal quality. (If the output number is equal or higher than 80, then the strength of the signal is good.)Source: Windows Central
Once you complete the steps, you'll quickly find out the quality of the Wi-Fi signal.
How to check Wi-Fi signal strength using PowerShell
To view the signal strength of a Wi-Fi connection using PowerShell, use these steps:
- Open Start.
- Search for PowerShell and click the top result to open the app.
- Type the following command to view the Wi-Fi signal strength and press Enter:
(netsh wlan show interfaces) -Match '^s+Signal' -Replace '^s+Signals+:s+','
Quick tip: Similar to Command Prompt, in PowerShell, you can also run thenetsh wlan show interfaces
command to view signal quality. - See the signal quality output. (The percentage goes from 0 to 100, where 100 percent indicates excellent signal quality.)Source: Windows Central
Once you complete the steps, if you see a signal quality between 80 and 100 percent, then the connection is reliable. If you see a signal above 70 percent, it's still good for light web browsing and managing emails. Anything below 60 percent means that you have a weak signal, and you should consider moving the device closer to the access point or relocating the access point to the middle of the house or office.
If you're trying to determine the perfect placement on the house or office for the best signal, run the above command where you typically use your computer, then move around to another place or room, and re-run the command to find out the signal strength in the new location.
In the case that you're viewing the Wi-Fi icon to find out the performance of the connection, consider that each bar (including the dot) represents around 25 percent of signal strength. This means that three and four bars indicate a good signal quality and anything below indicates a weak signal.
More Windows 10 resources
For more helpful articles, coverage, and answers to common questions about Windows 10, visit the following resources:
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