WiFi Site Survey Android: What It Is and How to Perform It?

What Are WiFi Site Survey on Android?

Most activities you do on your Android device, from web browsing to instant messaging and video calling, depend on a stable and fast internet connection to the internet. That’s why ensuring that you always are within the range of a strong WiFi signal should be your top priority.

The good news is that your Android device can tell you a lot of useful information about the quality of your WiFi connection, helping you figure out why it’s not performing as well as it should and determine the best way to improve it. You just need to install an Android WiFi site survey app and use it to collect useful information about nearby networks, including your own.

There are three main types of WiFi site surveys that can be performed with Android WiFi site survey apps:

• Active: During an active WiFi site survey, the surveying device (your Android smartphone or tablet) actively communicates with the WiFi network that’s being surveyed, analyzing its performance revealing issues such as packet loss or high latency.
• Passive: To perform a passive WiFi site survey, you don’t have to connect to any specific network. Instead, the surveying device analyzes all wireless activity in your area, revealing nearby WiFi networks and providing useful information about their performance and settings.
• Predictive: But what is a predictive survey, you wonder? Well, it’s basically a simulation performed using specialized software prior to the deployment of WiFi equipment. When done correctly, it can save a lot of money and prevent post-deployment issues.

If you’ve never performed a wireless site survey before, then it’s perfectly normal if you feel a bit confused now. But we have good news for you: performing each of the three main types of WiFi site surveys is as easy as installing the right WiFi site survey Android app on your device and letting it do all the work for you. The most difficult step then becomes the selection of the right app.

How to Perform an Android WiFi Site Survey with NetSpot

The Android version of NetSpot is widely regarded for its ease of use, so learning how to perform a WiFi site survey with its help won’t take you much time at all.

To get started, you first need to download the app from the Google Play Store. NetSpot for Android is both free to download and use without any limitations. Once installed on your device, you can go ahead and launch the app.

The first screen you’ll see after launching NetSpot for Android will present you with the following three options:

• Inspector: Lets you collect detailed information on surrounding WiFi networks and analyze them in real-time.

• Survey: Allows you to perform an in-depth analysis and troubleshooting of WiFi networks with color-coded visual heatmaps.

• Internet Speed Test: Makes it easy to find out exactly how fast your internet connection is.

If this is your first time performing a WiFi site survey, then we recommend you start with the Inspector option so that you can quickly and easily discover heaps of useful information about WiFi activity in your area. NetSpot will list all WiFi networks that are within range and tell you how each network is called, how strong its signal is, and which band and channel it’s broadcasting on, among other things.

From there, it’s a good idea to select the Survey option and create a detailed WiFi site survey to better understand how your own WiFi network performs and what you can do to make it perform even better. NetSpot will ask you to create a new WiFi site survey project and pick a map of the surveyed area. You will then be asked to place a marker in your current location and start scanning.

Your goal is to collect enough data so that the entire map is covered. This data can then be either used to create Wi-Fi heatmaps on your Android device or exported to build heatmaps in NetSpot PRO or Enterprise on your desktop computer.

Three types of Wi-Fi heatmaps can be generated directly in NetSpot for Android; this option is available through in-app purchase.

Thanks to their visual nature, WiFi heatmaps make it easy to spot signal weak zones, discover sources of signal interference, and more. The insights they provide can guide you when making adjustments to improve the performance of your WiFi network.

Finally, you can use NetSpot’s Internet Speed Test feature to verify that the adjustments you’ve made have actually delivered the desired results and made your WiFi network perform better.