It’s currently Linux-only because it uses iwlib (wireless_tools) to pull wireless information and perform scans, but that could be fixed by adding collector classes for other OSes. The full documentation is in the README, but the gist is that it’s a Python GUI (wxPython) and CLI application that automates the process. Over a couple of afternoons I came up with a really rough tool, python-wifi-survey-heatmap to handle this. This was enough to get me started on a similar project to automate the process. The closest I was able to find - and I’m very thankful that I found it - was a GitHub repository from Beau Gunderson that plots a heatmap superimposed on a floorplan using a CSV file of WiFi signal strength measurements. I wanted to do something similar for my new AP, but was rather surprised that I couldn’t find any existing F/ OSS solution only a handful of proprietary options costing anywhere from “more than I’d pay for a one-time thing” to astronomical prices, and none of them clearly with Linux support. At each tap, the software performs some measurements through the AP (I don’t remember what the specific software we used did, but generally it’s some bandwidth measurement like iperf) and ends up plotting a (predictive, interpolated) heatmap of signal strength or data transfer speeds over the floorplan. Essentially you temporarily rig up a running AP where you propose locating one, load a floorplan of the building into the site survey software, and then walk around the area tapping on the floorplan at your current location. Years ago when part of my job was supporting an extremely large wireless network, we used some expensive proprietary Windows software (I’m pretty sure it was Ekahau Site Survey) for performing site surveys toĭetermine AP location. I bought another Ubiquiti, of course, but wanted to be a bit more methodical and scientific in figuring out the best placement of it in my house. This week I finally bought myself a new wireless access point ( AP) to replace my current ones, a pair of older Ubiquiti models that have been continually in service without issue for nine years and five years, respectively.
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