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- Windows Mobile Device Centre (WMDC) and Outlook 2010 64-bit
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Where can I connect to my Wireless?
A couple of weeks ago, I read an interesting article about Ekahau Heat Mapper through my RSS subscription to Lifehacker (article here).
Ekahau offers a range of features depending on the version you
choose (from Free to Survey professional). From their website, the
primary features are listed as:
"Ever wondered how far your wireless goes, or how far do the
neighbouring wireless networks extend to? Ekahau HeatMapper will
display the coverage area of all the access points in the area - on
a map. You can display the combined coverage of the access points,
or analyze them one-by-one"
"Want to know where other wireless access points are located? After performing the site survey, HeatMapper will accurately the Wi-Fi access points in your facility - and anything that's leaking in from the outside."
I immediately though this looked like a really cool application that essentially allows for a spatial representation of a wireless network. I downloaded it that day and did some small tests around the office, and the forgot about it for a couple of weeks. until i was trying to use my home wireless in an obscure part of my house. Inside my house, I have a reasonable idea of where I can or cannot connect, but have not really checked out my property, so I though this was a perfect time to give Ekahau Heat Mapper a real test.
| The first requirement is that you
provide an image with a schematic of the area you would like to
analyse so I fired up Visio and sketched a quick schematic of mu
house and property. After drawing up my sketch, i imported it into the program and started walking around my house and property as per the instructions. Essentially, you left click on the schematic according to where you are in real life and then when you are finished, it generates a "heat" map of your wireless network. As you walk around, the software provides a representation of the signal strength of the access point you are connected to, and also determines a signal strength of other access points in the vicinity - which essentially gives you an approximate representation of their spatial location. |
|
When you right-click to finish, the software summarises all you points and interpolates them to a heat map of signal strength. You can then export the output out to an image. With the free version you cannot save your survey. A portion of the output of my survey is shown below:
P.s for those wishing to hack my network - it is not
open!
The only real drawbacks of the free version I would say
are:
1. You cannot turn your path off when you are plotting your
locations (i.e. I would like to save a image of my heat map without
those ghastly green arrows)
2. It does not handle double stories - but I can understand this as
it is not an simply task to handle spatially.
I would expect that the survey versions of the software can
handle this.
I imagine it would be quite an interesting task to do for free/pay
for public hotspots such as an airport. Additionally, a community
contributed view of open wireless AP's may be interesting to see in
a heat map format such as this!