choice #1
NetSpot for iPhone
Available completely free for iPhone and iPad. Needs iOS version 10.0 or higher. Requires the WiPry 2500x device for most of the features.
You may not realize it, but you already have a basic WiFi analyzer on your iPhone, and you’ve used it at least once. Don’t believe us? Just launch Settings from your Home screen, tap the Wi-Fi option, and look at the “Choose a network” section.
It should list all WiFi networks available in your area and display basic information about them, such as their names, security, and signal strength — enough to help you connect to the right network. But what if you need more information to analyze radio signal leakages, discover noise sources, map channel usage, locate effective access points, and so on?
In that case, you need a dedicated iOS WiFi channel analyzer. The good news is that there are many different WiFi analyzer iOS apps to choose from, some more feature-packed and easier to use than others, but all intended to accomplish the same goal: give you more information about available WiFi networks.
You can use a WiFi analyzer in two different ways: to analyze your own WiFi network or to analyze other WiFi networks.
When analyzing your own WiFi network, you probably want to know where its coverage ends and uncover all areas of signal weakness, also known as dead spots. This is easily done with WiFi analyzer iPad or iPhone apps because you can just walk from one place to the next and instantly see where your WiFi network leaves something to be desired.
If all you want to do is learn more information about other WiFi networks in your general area, you don’t have to go anywhere. You can simply collect every detail about surrounding WiFi networks from one place and study their security, signal strength, noise, and configuration.
By combining these two methods, you can effortlessly select the optimal place for a WiFi router, set up a large enterprise WiFi network, or eliminate dead spots that are preventing you from fully enjoying your internet connection.
Here’s a brief overview of the information provided by the best WiFi analyzers for iOS:
With all this information just a few taps away, diagnosing even the most complicated WiFi issues becomes a breeze. The next chapter of this article lists the top 5 best WiFi analyzer apps for iPhone that you can download right now.
Looking for the best app to use with your laptop? We've put together our lists of the best WiFi analyzer apps for Mac and the best WiFi analyzer apps for Windows.
We scoured the App Store, looking for the best WiFi analyzer app for iPhone and discovered many interesting options and one clear winner. Our selection criteria were fairly straightforward: the best WiFi analyzer iOS must be easy to use, deliver accurate results, and have enough features to satisfy the needs of everyone from home users to professionals.
Monitor and analyze such parameters as network name, signal strength, security protocol and easily sort the data by signal strength or name. You can measure the Internet download speed for your network with the NetSpot app.
NetSpot for iPhone offers an indispensable feature of measuring the Internet speed of your current network. You can quickly get such parameters as the download speed and ping and compare them to your previous measurements for more advanced analysis. Internet speed test does not require the WiPry 2500x device!
Network Analyzer by Technet can help you diagnose problems with your WiFi network and gather diagnostic information for a variety of different purposes. It supports both IPv4 and IPv6 connections and comes with a bunch of useful tools, including WiFi/LAN/port scanner, ping, traceroute, whois, DNS, and others.
While not as easy to use as NetSpot, Network Analyzer by Technet is still a fairly straightforward WiFi analyzer iPad/iPhone that does exactly what it promises to do.
Wi-Fi SweetSpots is more than just an internet speed test utility. It allows you to observe how your WiFi connection speed fluctuates over time, helping you discover the best place for your router and monitor if your internet service provider is actually delivering the speeds you’re paying for.
Monitoring WiFi speed with Wi-Fi SweetSpots is a matter of a simple tap, and the app can even virtually mark the slow and fast WiFi spots in your room or compare multiple datasets.
Scany presents itself as the Swiss army knife of network scanning. Its green-on-black color scheme purposefully evokes hackers and movies like The Matrix, as if to tell new users that it means business. It includes a wide set of network analysis tools, such as ping, trace, WHOIS, DNS lookup, port scanner, and others, all designed to provide more or less the same functionality as their desktop counterparts.
A feature-packed network scanner isn’t for everyone, and it’s definitely overkill for home users who just want to make their WiFi networks perform better.
If you’ve ever wondered if someone’s piggybacking on your network without you knowing about it, WiFi Analyzer by Master App Solution can give you a clear answer. This capable WiFi network analyzer can perform a detailed analysis of your home network and give you insight into its performance and configuration.
You can also use it to learn more about nearby WiFi networks with tools such as ping or whois.
Fing is one of the most popular WiFi analyzers in the App Store. It shines the most when used together with Fingbox, a plug-and-play device designed to give you more control over your home network. With it, Fing can be used to block intruders and unknown devices, set parental control features, analyze bandwidth usage, and receive alerts when your family members come home.
Without Fingbox, this iOS WiFi analyzer is still more than capable enough to provide you with plenty of useful information to help you understand wireless activity in your area. For example, you can discover devices connected to nearby networks, run internet speed tests, receive network security and device alerts, and more. Fing is free with in-app purchases, so there’s nothing stopping you from giving it a try.
Speedtest by Ookla is widely recognized as the best WiFi analyzer app for iPhone when it comes to internet speed testing. Thanks to its global network of more than 12,000 testing servers, the app provides highly accurate and locationally relevant results that reflect the true performance of your internet connection.
Unlike many other similar WiFi analyzers for iPhone, Speedtest by Ookla includes a dedicated video testing feature that lets you perform a real-time assessment of your network’s current streaming quality. The app is supported by ads, but you can remove them for a one-time fee of just $0.99. There’s also an option that lets you subscribe to Ookla’s VPN service for $4.99, but we haven’t tested it.
iNetTools Pro is a handy toolbox that’s packed to the brim with network diagnostics tools, including ping, trace route, DNS lookup, port scan, whois, and others. Because of the nature of the included tools, iNetTools Pro is geared toward more experienced users and professionals, which is also reflected in its price of $5.99.
When used as an iPhone WiFi analyzer, iNetTools Pro can tell you which ports are open and potentially exposed to online threats, how long it takes data packets to complete their journey from your router to a remote server, and more.
Opensignal Internet Speed Test is a completely free WiFi analyzer app for iPhone and iPod touch that also lets you test the speed of your 3G, 4G/LTE, or 5G connection. Testing with this analyzer app takes just 20 seconds (10 seconds for the download test and 10 seconds for the upload test), and test results are automatically saved so they can be turned into useful network statistics with average speeds for download, upload, and latency.
OpenSignal Internet Speed test aggregates data from its users and transforms it into coverage maps that show signal strength down to street level. You can use these coverage maps to determine ahead of time how fast you can expect your mobile internet to be when traveling across the country to know whether or not you should download a few movies to your device ahead of time.
WiFiMan is a WiFi analyzer for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and Macs with Apple Silicon. Even though the app is developed by Ubiquiti, a manufacturer of wireless data communication and wired products for enterprises and homes, you don’t actually need a Ubiquiti router to use it.
WiFiMan WiFi analyzer for iOS is split into three main tabs. The first tab is dedicated to testing your internet speed, the second tab is where you can find detailed information about your WiFi network, and the third tab lets you discover devices connected to your network and learn useful information about them.
One reason why we selected NetSpot as the best WiFi analyzer app for iOS was its exceptional ease of use. You don’t need any special skills or knowledge to analyze WiFi coverage with NetSpot — all you need is Oscium WiPry 2500x connected to your iPhone.
Oscium WiPry 2500x is required due to the limitations imposed by Apple, but it offers multiple important advantages that make it the right solution for regular users and professionals alike, including a removable external antenna and full support for 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, 802.11ac and 802.15.4 (ZigBee).
First, you need to install NetSpot for iOS from the App Store. NetSpot is completely free and available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Once you have NetSpot installed on your iPhone, connect Oscium WiPry 2500x to transform your phone into a perfectly portable and capable WiFi troubleshooting tool.
Launch NetSpot just like you would any other app, and give it some time to gather detailed information about surrounding WiFi networks.
Unless you’re performing WiFi analysis in a remote location, it’s likely that NetSpot for iOS will discover many different WiFi networks. You can analyze all found wireless networks in the Networks tab and look at parameters such as band, signal strength, channel number, and security protocol, or you can switch to the Comparison tab and plot WiFi networks on a graph.
To switch to the Comparison tab, either swipe left or click the Comparison button above the list of found wireless networks. Tick the checkbox next to each network you want to compare. The color of the checkbox always corresponds to the color of the network in the graph. NetSpot for iOS can display the following graphics: signal strength (timeline), channel overlap 2.4 GHz, and channel overlap 5 GHz.
When comparing WiFi networks with NetSpot for iOS, you can apply various filters in order to compare networks by different parameters. For example, you can filter WiFi networks by signal strength. This can be done by tapping any of the colorful circle icons in the top part of the app. You can also filter WiFi networks by security protocol, frequency band, or name.
At any time, NetSpot for iOS gives you the option to maximize or minimize comparison graphs by swapping up or down or tapping the button in the bottom-right corner of the app.
The information provided by NetSpot for iOS should be enough to help you determine the optimal way to improve your WiFi coverage. If you notice that the WiFi channel you’re currently using is also used by several nearby WiFi networks, you should find one that’s less busy.
Likewise, if NetSpot finds many WiFi networks broadcasting in the 2.4 GHz band but barely any networks taking advantage of the 5 GHz band, it might be the right time for you to invest in a new router so you can utilize both bands for improved coverage and capacity.
After you’ve determined how to improve your WiFi coverage, it’s time to make the necessary changes and use NetSpot for iOS again to verify that you’ve achieved a measurable improvement. If you haven’t, try something different and measure again. To obtain accurate results, make sure to measure from the same place and during the same time of the day.
NetSpot for iOS and other best WiFi analyzer iOS apps are convenient and useful, but they’re not nearly as comprehensive as their desktop counterparts. With the desktop version of NetSpot (available for Windows and macOS), you can learn a wealth of useful information about your own WiFi network and other networks in your area.
More specifically, you can create detailed heatmaps that overlay gathered information on a map in an intuitive, color-coded manner, making it easy to spot areas of signal weakness, sources of signal interference, and other problems.
There’s no reason to fear WiFi analysis. With the right WiFi analyzer for iPhone, anyone can learn more about their WiFi network and improve its performance. NetSpot is our favorite WiFi analyzer for iOS because it combines ease of use with capable features, satisfying the requirements of professionals and home users alike while being completely free.
The best physical WiFi analyzer for iPhone is the WiPry 2500x, which can transform any iPhone into a dual band spectrum analyzer (2.4 & 5 GHz) capable of visualizing all spectral activity and revealing performance-degrading interference. WiPry 2500x visualizes 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, 802.11ac, 802.11ax WiFi networks, and it also supports the 802.15.4 (ZigBee) protocol.
The best free WiFi analyzer app for iPhone is NetSpot. That’s because it can take advantage of the highly accurate and reliable WiPry 2500x spectrum analyzer, using it to deliver professional measurements right on your iPhone. NetSpot supports both wireless frequency bands—2.4 and 5GHz—as well as the latest WiFi standards—802.11b/g/n/ac. Despite its excellent performance and broad range of features, NetSpot is one of the most user-friendly WiFi analyzer apps iPhone owners can download.
To check WiFi signal strength on your iPhone, you need to download a WiFi analyzer app. The good news is that the best free WiFi analyzer app, NetSpot, can be downloaded from the App Store for free and used to check WiFi signal strength with just a few simple taps.
Here’s what you need to do to use your iPhone as a WiFi scanner:
As you can see, using NetSpot as a WiFi scanner is easy, and the accuracy of the obtained results is good enough even for professionals, making it the best WiFi analyzer app for iOS.
Here’s what you need to do to run a WiFi diagnostic on your iPhone:
Your iPhone can tell you the network’s BSSID, channel, signal strength, security settings, and more. If you’d like even more information about available WiFi networks, then you can download a third-party WiFi analyzer for iPhone, such as one of those described in this article.
Yes, you can use your iPhone as a WiFi repeater, but only if your device is jailbroken, using tethering software called PDAnet. With this handy app, you can turn your iPhone into a true WiFi hotspot so that you can share your mobile internet access with your computer or iPad.
The easiest way to scan for WiFi channels on an iPhone is to download a third-party WiFi analyzer for iOS, such as NetSpot, Network Analyzer by Technet, or WiFi SweetSpots, just to give three examples.
