Available for MacBook (macOS 10.12+) or any laptop (Windows 7/8/10/11) with a standard 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax wireless network adapter.
What Is a WiFi Mapper and Why It’s Useful?
In this article, we provide an introduction to WiFi mapping, and show our list of the best WiFi mapper software and apps with the NetSpot WiFi heatmap app among them.
Even though you may not yet be familiar with it, WiFi mapping has become one of the most useful activities. Why? Because wireless devices have become an integral part of our daily lives, and their optimal performance requires a strong WiFi.
By creating a WiFi heat map using a WiFi mapper app, you can quickly see all areas of signal weakness and figure out the best way to eliminate them. So, get ready because you’re about to learn a lot of useful information that you can immediately put to practice.
What Is a Wi-Fi Mapper?
A WiFi mapper, sometimes called simply a heatmapper, is a software application that can create a WiFi heat map, which is a special WiFi coverage map that visually highlights all areas of signal weakness and dead zones.
Heat maps are used to make adjustments and improve wireless coverage. It used to be that only trained networking professionals knew how to create heat maps using specialized software that would be completely inaccessible to regular home users. But times have changed, and heat map software is now more accessible than ever.
That’s great news for regular home users who are not satisfied with their WiFi and would like to improve it without calling over a technician and potentially paying hundreds of dollars for a simple fix.
How Can I Read Wi-Fi Heat Map?
When you create heap maps with a WiFi mapper such as NetSpot, you will see a plan of your area overlaid by a colorful representation of WiFi strength. Typically, greenish and bluish colors indicate a weaker signal, while yellowish and reddish colors indicate a stronger signal.
A WiFi map may also have several blank spots on it. Such spots are commonly called dead zones, and they represent places with no or extremely weak WiFi signal. Dead zones are the nemesis of all WiFi users as they may cause connection drops when roaming from one room to another. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to eliminate them with a capable WiFi mapper and the knowledge of how to create a heat map with it.
Best WiFi Mapping Software
When selecting the best WiFi mapping software available, we’ve placed emphasis on ease of use as this article is intended primarily for regular home users who wish to improve the quality of their Wi-Fi. But ease of use isn’t the only criteria we have considered. Features, price, and support are all just as important, and our choice of the best Wi-Fi mapping software reflects this.
- NetSpot — is a tried and tested heatmapper with three distinct WiFi analysis modes.
- Ekahau Product Suite — is a powerful collection of tools for designing, analyzing, and optimizing Wi-Fi networks.
- SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor — is a powerful and comprehensive network monitoring solution that includes WiFi heat map functionality as part of its broader suite of networking apps.
NetSpot is a tried and tested Wi-Fi heatmapper with three distinct WiFi analysis modes, and a user interface so simple that anyone can use it without reading the manual.
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Inspector Mode
Lets you take quick snapshots of all WiFi networks in your area.
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Survey Mode
Makes it easy to create detailed WiFi strength heat maps.
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Planning Mode
Enables you to simulate and plan your WiFi network's layout and coverage.
To create a WiFi heat map with NetSpot, just start the application, switch to Survey Mode and click the Create new… survey button.
Pick a name for your survey project and select the correct settings for it.
Next, either draw a new map of the area you wish to survey or upload an existing one.
NetSpot will then instruct you to walk from spot to spot on the map until you’ve covered it all.
As you can see, creating a WiFi heat map with NetSpot is extremely simple and quick.
In fact, you don't even need to visit the location in person because predictive planning can save a lot of money by helping you figure out your WiFi infrastructure needs before you make any purchases.
With NetSpot's predictive heatmaps, you can simulate the wireless coverage of an environment based on your floor plan and anticipated access point placements. This allows you to visualize potential signal strength and coverage areas, identify potential dead zones, and optimize access point placement without the need for physical surveying.
NetSpot works on Mac and Windows and you can download it for free. Free 7-day activation codes of NetSpot PRO are available upon request. NetSpot PRO can capture up to 50 zones per project and up to 50 snapshots per zone. In total, NetSpot Pro is able to record 500 data points per a single heat map and visualize an unlimited number of access points.
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User-friendly interface
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Three scanning modes
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Highly accurate results
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Detailed data collection and visualization
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Free version available
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Affordable pricing
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Limited features in the free version
- Summary recommendation: Get NetSpot
Ekahau Product Suite is a powerful collection of tools for designing, analyzing, and optimizing Wi-Fi networks. The suite includes Ekahau AI Pro, a software solution that uses artificial intelligence to create predictive wireless network designs.
Ekahau AI Pro boasts AI-assisted predictive wireless network design capabilities, network upgrade simulations, and custom reports detailing the performance health of your network. It supports multiple buildings and thousands of access points per project, so it’s more than capable of meeting the needs of even the most demanding enterprise users.
To take advantage of all these features, you need the Ekahau Sidekick 2 device to collect data — a regular WiFi adapter won't do the job. For enterprise customers, who are the target audience of this WiFi mapper app, the purchase of Sidekick 2 won't break the bank. For smaller organizations or home users, however, the extra (steep) expense is very difficult to justify when there are other WiFi mappers that do the job just as well for a fraction of the cost.
Pros and Cons
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AI-assisted predictive wireless network designs
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Can handle multiple buildings
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Part of Ekahau’s capable suite of WiFi analysis products
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Expensive
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Requires the Ekahau Sidekick 2 device to collect data
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is a powerful and comprehensive network monitoring solution that includes Wi-Fi heat map functionality as part of its broader suite of networking applications. NPM offers a fully functioning trial software that can be used for up to 30 days without any limitations.
The Wi-Fi heat map feature in NPM can automatically create custom Wi-Fi heat maps, find dead zones, and map the location of connected clients. Additionally, NPM provides a range of tools for monitoring and analyzing network bandwidth performance and traffic patterns.
SolarWinds NPM is best suited for those who are heavily invested in SolarWinds’ ecosystem of enterprise-grade products or for those who are looking for a comprehensive network monitoring solution in addition to WiFi heat mapping.
Pros and Cons
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Comprehensive network monitoring
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Automatic heat map creation
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Integration with other SolarWinds products
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Expensive
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Only available for Windows
Best WiFi Heat Map iPhone Apps
To perform Wi-Fi mapping, you don’t even need a laptop. These days, there are several great WiFi heat map iPhone apps that let you collect accurate information about wireless networks with nothing but your trusted iOS devices.
When selecting a WiFi heatmap iOS app, you should pay attention not only to its price and user interface but also to its features and accuracy.
To save you time, we’ve analyzed most currently available WiFi heat map apps for iOS, and here are our top 3 picks.
- NetSpot — is a professional-grade WiFi heat map app for iOS.
- Wi-Fi SweetSpots Map — was created to help iPhone users discover the best place for their wireless router.
- Ekahau Analyzer — it greatly simplifies WiFi troubleshooting by automating several common tests.
NetSpot is a great quality Wi-Fi heat map app for iOS (it’s also available as an Android Wi-Fi heat map app).
You can use it to run an active scan of your wireless network and generate WiFi heatmaps based on the collected data. Test the Internet download and upload speeds, ping preferred websites and web-hosts.
NetSpot for iOS doesn't require any auxiliary hardware equipment.
NetSpot for iOS is best used as a supplementary app to the desktop versions of NetSpot that offer you an advanced WiFi surveying and planning experience.
Wi-Fi SweetSpots Map was created to help iPhone users discover the best place for their wireless router. It lets you quickly and easily overlay WiFi strength signal information on a map, allowing you to see at a glance where your signal is the strongest and weakest.
Unfortunately, the resulting WiFi heat map is a basic two-color gradient of a fairly low resolution, so it’s not really suitable for complex troubleshooting and advanced users.
Even though Ekahau Analyzer can’t really create a WiFi heat map, it still deserves a place on this list because it greatly simplifies WiFi troubleshooting by automating several common tests, including signal strength, SNR, channel quality, and connectivity tests.
The biggest problem, and the main reason why it has received so many negative reviews, is the fact that it’s intended only for commercial use, and regular home users have no option to create an account or register.
How To Create a Wireless Network Map with NetSpot
Creating a map of your wireless network is an effective way of evaluating your network's performance and troubleshooting weak spots. So, a good wireless network mapper can come in handy and will allow you to visualize your WiFi coverage, your signal strength, noise and interference across your entire network area.
NetSpot is a Wi-Fi mapper app for Mac and Windows (also available for Android and iOS). It allows you to take a complete site survey of your network and view the following WiFi heatmap visualizations:
- Signal-to-noise ratio: this wireless network map highlights your signal level as compared to your noise level (for macOS only);
- Signal level: this map highlights your signal level;
- Signal-to-interference ratio: this map highlights co-channel interference from other radio transmitters.
The PRO and Enterprise versions of NetSpot offer additional visualizations, and active scanning and troubleshooting features. It provides 2 additional noise level and quantity of access points visualizations, 3 Active Scanning visualizations and 6 additional Troubleshooting visualizations:
- Quantity of access points: this map highlights the number of access points (or routers) detected at each measurement point;
- Noise level: this wireless network map highlights your noise levels (for macOS only);
- Download speed: this Wi-Fi map highlights Internet download speeds recorded during an active scan;
- Upload speed: this map highlights Internet upload speeds recorded during an active scan;
- Wireless transmit rate: this map highlights the Internet wireless transmit rate recorded during an active scan;
- Troubleshooting issues with SNR: this Wi-Fi map makes it easier to identify and troubleshoot weak areas of signal-to-noise ratio coverage (for macOS only);
- Troubleshooting low signal level: this map makes it easier to identify and troubleshoot areas of weak signal level;
- Troubleshooting high noise level: this map makes it easier to identify and troubleshoot areas of high noise level (for macOS only);
- Troubleshooting overlapping channels (SIR): this Wi-Fi map makes it easier to identify and troubleshoot areas of high co-channel interference;
- Troubleshooting low download rate: this map makes it easier to identify and troubleshoot areas of low download speeds;
- Troubleshooting low upload rate: this map makes it easier to identify and troubleshoot areas of low upload speeds.
How to Use a WLAN Mapper
It is easy to get started using NetSpot as a WLAN mapper. Simply download, install and launch the application. If you have not used NetSpot before, please read "How Do I Start My Survey?" before starting your survey.
The NetSpot survey process involves uploading a map of your network area (or drawing a map of the area using NetSpot's tools).
Then you carry your MacBook to various spots in your network area and take a data sample at each spot. Once you are done with your WLAN map, you can view the visualizations and start troubleshooting any issues. You can make adjustments to your wireless network map and then take a new survey to determine the results of your efforts and get better WiFi coverage.
NetSpot Wi-Fi signal booster empowers you to:
- Boost wireless network signal
- Troubleshoot poor Wi-Fi signal
- Increase Wi-Fi signal
- Act as Wi-Fi signal strength tester
- Boost laptop Wi-Fi signal
- Make Wi-Fi signal stronger
Survey a space of any size directly on your Android device in just a few effortless taps.
Conclusion
Wi-Fi mapping can help you significantly improve the performance of all wireless devices. As long as you equip yourself with the best Wi-Fi heatmap software, then you should be able to create a Wi-Fi heat map in a matter of minutes and without any special knowledge, making the activity well worth the little effort required.
WiFi Mapper FAQs
Here’s what you need to do to get a WiFi heat map:
- Install a WiFi mapper app on your laptop or mobile device.
- Use the app to collect WiFi signal data.
- Let the app turn the collected data into a WiFi heat map.
There are many things that you can do to get a stronger WiFi signal on your WiFi, including:
- Not using a protective case (especially a metal one).
- Updating to the latest version of iOS.
- Optimizing the placement and settings of your WiFi router.
- Eliminate sources of signal interference.
- Get closer to your WiFi router.
To map out your home WiFi network, you need to collect WiFi signal data using a WiFi mapper app, which will then turn this data into a WiFi heat map for you.
The best WiFi mapper app for iPhone should be easy to use, capture accurate signal data, and provide plenty of useful features at an affordable price. NetSpot for iPhone meets all these criteria, making it the best WiFi mapper app for iPhone currently available.
Mapping out your wireless coverage will help you evaluate the network's performance and see the weaker spots in the coverage. A good WiFi analyzer will help you visualize the signal strength, noise and interference throughout the surveyed area.
NetSpot for macOS offers signal-to-noise ratio, noise level, signal level, quantity of access points, and signal-to-interference ratio visualizations. NetSpot for Windows offers signal level, quantity of access points, and signal-to-interference ratio visualizations.
Also NetSpot offers additional visualizations, and active scanning and troubleshooting features. There are 2 additional noise level and quantity of access points visualizations, 3 Active Scanning visualizations and 6 additional Troubleshooting visualizations.
NetSpot is an excellent WLAN mapper that allows you to upload a map of your network area (or draw it if needed with NetSpot's handy tools). As you are carrying your laptop around your area you are filling up your map with precise measurements. As a result, you are getting a visual heatmap of your network for efficient analysis and troubleshooting.
NetSpot is available for macOS, Windows, Android and iOS .