AirCheck G3 Reviews

I use it mainly for three things. For one, I use it for wired connection. I also use it for a couple of things on the wireless mode, and I use it a fair amount for the wireless locate function. 

I'm using AirCheck G2. I know they just came out with G3, which I don't have. G3 has some new features that sound interesting.

It is a pretty useful tool for some situations. It is a handheld device. It reminds me of something a UPS or a FedEx driver would have. This device is in my bag, and whenever I have to go on-site, I always bring it because I never know if I'm going to run into a wired situation where I want to do a wired test, or I need VLAN or port information. So, I just bring it. I already used it this week for that. It is always there, and it is a really simple test to run. With the live link, I can get historical data on that or at least store it. I use it for that a lot.

It is useful for wireless packet captures. I used it for that this week, and I've solved one of the biggest issues we had with a vendor. I was using it to get the captures and eventually found the solution based on those captures. It is a pretty easy device to do wireless captures. In some of our wireless environments, for example, in our Aruba environment, we can do captures on the APs, but in some of our Cisco environments, they've somewhat taken that functionality away on our 3800 APs. This device is small and convenient. It doesn’t need external antennas, and I can take it to a spot, do wireless captures pretty much anywhere, and then use Wireshark for analysis.

It is helpful for finding an access point. We're doing an upgrade at a hospital. I work with a cabling vendor who says, "You said you have an AP here, but I can't find it." I can search based on a MAC address or an SSID, find that, and use the locate function. It'll give me a dial indicator and a beep indicator of where this device is. I routinely find access points that we can't physically see, for example, above the ceiling.

It is useful when you're having reports of poor wireless. In such a case, one of the things I'll do is I'll just set this on check SSIDs. For example, in our hospitals, we use very specific SSIDs. If I see one that's not ours, and I know that's not supposed to be there, I want to find that device, and I want to know what's going on with that device. Sometimes, it is a vendor device, or someone has put a hotspot on, but sometimes, it isn't supposed to be there. For example, in a hospital, it is very common to have waiting rooms, and there is a cable TV set up in these waiting rooms. Sometimes, the cable company just turns their wireless on by default. I go in there, and then we contact the cable company to turn their wireless off there because it is impacting us.

I bought one out of my own money. So, I found enough value to spend my own money on it. The guys on our team saw it, and they used to say, "Wow, what's that? What are you doing with that? We should have one of those." I convinced my boss to buy one for the team. Tomorrow, we're going to do a big wireless upgrade in the hospital, and I'm bringing my AirCheck G2. Very likely, we'll run into a situation where it would be an easy tool to use for quickly diagnosing or understanding what's going on.

Wireless planning was one of the things for which we used it a lot last summer. That may seem counterintuitive, but our healthcare system is going through a big wireless upgrade, moving from Cisco to Aruba. We're a rural healthcare system. In some cases, we have a clinic in a town of 1,500 people. I had interns take the G2 and go through the northern part of our state and visit our sites. They used AirCheck to verify wall density and signal degradation through walls. With that information, we could more accurately model those locations in the software we use for wireless planning. We were able to use 20% to 25% fewer access points because I had accurate wall information. We saw the benefit right away of sending our interns to test these remote sites. We could see that we don't need as many APs because we actually measured, and we were not guessing about the wall density. We did that at 15 sites and saved thousands and thousands of dollars. I don't use AirMapper at big sites, but small sites are where we could potentially use it. Its functionality is so easy to use. It allows a less experienced person to be more productive personally. Some of the guys who were doing this work were summer interns. They're not network engineers yet. This tool is easy to use.

Speed of resolution is another benefit, and with that comes customer satisfaction. At one of the hospitals, I work with our Biomed team. I took my AirCheck with me because they were moving some monitors around. They were not network savvy. I was able to just quickly plug the Aircheck into our emergency department network jacks and document everything and say, "We're going to reserve that port for this device, and that port for this other device." I could send them an email with all the documentation. They were all set. They could go and implement the solution. To a large degree, our emergency department personnel don't know what happened, but it all works. That's a big thing.

We were having some voice quality issues with some of our iPhones, and it seemed like the Android devices didn't see it. A lot of nurses use little handheld devices that have messengers. So, they have texting on there, and they have voice calls. They also can use it, for example, to scan medication and things like that. They were reporting some voice quality issues. I ended up using my AirCheck to resolve the issue. I was able to show the vendor that on their iPhones, they were not using the correct QoS markings. What was happening was that the QoS was being effectively lost once it left their iPhone. So, we're not giving QoS priority throughout our network. It was a huge issue for us because not only does it impact the nurses, it potentially also impacts patient care.

It makes the speed to resolution faster, and then our staff goes on to the next issue. It enhances our end-users' happiness because they want their problems fixed fast. When I had those guys go out to our small clinics, I didn't have to send a more qualified engineer to be doing this work because obviously, they need to be doing other more intensive network work. So, it frees up the time of our skilled people to do other stuff. It is difficult for me to quantify that from a productivity standpoint, except to say that I saw thousands and thousands of dollars of savings, and I had my engineers doing other things. From what we pay a network engineer to what you pay an intern, might be a $30 per hour delta. I can give this tool to a summer intern making 25 bucks an hour to have him do this work versus having to send a $50 per hour engineer to do the work.

It is hard to measure the reduction in troubleshooting time because I'm never without it. I just bring it, and it is with me all the time. If I go remote, it is packed in my remote box. It is not the only tool I'm using, but certainly, for some issues, it can cut down the troubleshooting time in half or less. For example, one of the tools I use is Ekahau Connect, When I need to use Ekahau, it takes me 10 minutes just to get that set up so I can start using it. After I hit the power button on my AirCheck, it is ready to go in 15 seconds. Depending on the issue, it is just much faster to find a solution.

AirCheck G2 is my number one pull-out tool when I enter new customer sites because it starts quicker than any notebook or device I own. I use it to get an overview of the wireless LAN infrastructure at a customer's location. I take out the tool and get an idea of what's happening before I even enter the site. I can see which SSIDs the customer has, how they are organized, which channels they use, plus a quick overview of what's occurring on the customer's side. 

My other primary use is to get deeper insights when troubleshooting. When a customer has a problem with the wireless LAN, I use the solution to get a preliminary idea of the issue, whether it's related to the wireless network itself or something else, like the DHCP or DNS services. The solution lets me see what's going on and understand where the problem originates.

Wi-Fi is divided into bands: a 2.4 GHz band, a 5 GHz band, and most recently a 6 GHz band. These bands are divided into channels, and for a properly designed Wi-Fi setup, I need to use specific channels to avoid interference. AirCheck G2 gives me an overview of which channels are used by the access points or who delivers the Wi-Fi, which gives me a clear picture of what's going on.

When it comes to deploying access points, AirCheck G2 can check the internet. I can plug in a cable originating from the access point and check if it is receiving an IP address and if the access point is getting enough power. I can quickly check the basic installation on the customer's side to ensure that everything is correctly set up to accommodate an access point in the environment.

There's a feature which helps me create a heat map. The product comes with a cloud service called Link-Live, which allows me to import a building plan. I can walk around a building and tap my location on the display to conduct a frequency scan, and see what signals are received. The result is a heat map, where I can visualize where Wi-Fi signals are and aren't received throughout the entire building. 

We used to work with different tools, but having this solution is an excellent opportunity because it's so compact and ready to go. We don't have to carry a notebook or tablet to run the software. It's a handy device. 

There are two perspectives to consider; mine and the company's, as the solution is a privately owned device. It isn't adopted company-wide nor used by the entire networking team. Therefore, we have workflows based on other tools, specifically Ekahau, which is why I don't use AirCheck G2 as much as I would like. I would prefer AirCheck G2 for these workflows as it is a more lightweight tool, but that would be a company decision. On the first release, some view modes were missing, but NetAlly has greatly improved their product. There may be other solutions that deliver more information through a spectrum view, but for a Wi-Fi-focused tool, there's nothing I'm missing. 

I'm happy with the ability to create heat maps in Link-Live's cloud service. All the necessary information is accessible in the cloud service, so anyone who uses the device is synced to Link-Live. On the other hand, a product designed to be easy to use is made more complex by German data security laws, which means we need to be careful where data is stored. This is not a fault with the product, as I love the ease of use with Link-Live. Receiving permission for data to be stored in US-based servers solves this issue. 

I think the results are accurate and complete. They are in line with the analyses of other tools. So from my point of view, the results are pretty accurate.

I think it has saved time. I cannot speak for the whole company because I only give the solution to my colleagues when they need it, as I own it. It made me more productive, and I always carry it with me. It doesn't require another tool bag or a tablet like the Ekahau Sidekick. I can use AirCheck G2 to check that the cabling team have done a good job without consulting a tablet or my notebook. The process of checking if network outlets have been patched and if I'm receiving an IP address from the correct VLAN takes about three minutes with the solution, compared to 15 without it.

It is hard to say precisely how much time the solution saves during troubleshooting. Using AirCheck G2, I can quickly tell if there is an issue with the Wi-Fi or service near the network, such as the DNS or DHCP. This is the first troubleshooting phase, which takes just a few minutes. However, this doesn't mean the issue is necessarily resolved. I know where I have to look deeper in the network. Therefore, I wouldn't say the solution guarantees to resolve issues faster, but it definitely speeds up the initial stages of troubleshooting. I can get a good idea of an issue and where I need to do further analysis in three to five minutes. 

Our use case for the AirCheck G2 is mostly for our remote sites. We support about a dozen sites where there are multiple floors and multiple areas covered by WiFi. These areas are supported by local analysts who will go onto the floor and use the AirMapper on the device to troubleshoot any wireless that has been brought to their attention. 

This product has improved things over earlier troubleshooting in our organization simply by providing a utility that our tech analysts can use to troubleshoot wireless at their sites, without needing an engineer to intervene for every single instance. Being able to upload maps via the Link-Live portal automatically means we can review them with the tech analysts and go through the steps of remediating the issues that they've been discovering.

This utility has made our staff more productive—extremely. It has eliminated countless hours of travel time to outside facilities, time that we can use for other tasks.

The solution has also greatly reduced the amount of troubleshooting time by giving us a utility that the technicians onsite can readily use to identify wireless issues, instead of having to work with multiple means to get the same results. 

We are using G2, which is the generation two solution. It hasn't changed since we got it. Other than a few software updates, it hasn't really changed.

We use it to collect data for our Wi-Fi systems. We collect the data, and we push it up to Link-Live, and then we pull the data down and review it for any remote problems or troubleshooting assistance. We have a number of these units. We've got close to eight or nine of them that are out in the field. They're basically used by our technician staff to do that data collection for us.

We also have one for engineering so that we can take it on trips to get a better real-time view of the wireless system activity in an area.

When we do the real-time items, we're just using the data as a real-time tool. When we use Link-Live, it is going to the Link-Live Cloud, which can be called NetAlly's private cloud. It is within an account that we have visibility into. So, it is like a hosted private cloud. It is not publicly available.

We have a multiple office situation in our company where we have very geographically dispersed offices. It has allowed us to centralize some of our troubleshooting people because we can collect data remotely and more efficiently.

It allows our remote site personnel to collect data if they have a problem. They can then push it up. It goes up to the Link-Live portal, and we can then have visibility into it. We can look at the data with their portal, or we can download it to our computer, which is what I like to do, and then use AirMagnet to open and review the data. It allows us to do remote troubleshooting. It allows us to do remote Site Survey assistance, and in real-time, it helps us to do interference detection and find out who's running what in a certain area.

When we're collecting the data, we're using the AirMapper Site Survey feature. It is pretty easy to use. It is pretty straightforward. I can talk to a technician who is out in the field. I have a one-page write-up that they just follow. When they do it one or two times, it is pretty easy. It is fairly intuitive.

AirMapper Site Survey gathers the data I need. It does everything I need it for. I'd rate it a ten out of ten in terms of the ability to gather Wi-Fi site survey data.

We use phone apps a lot. We have a few different ones that we use, but phone apps only give you limited information, and because they are apps, our security posture is different on them. They give us some basic information, but they do not give as much detail as compared to what we get out of AirCheck.

We use it for multiple purposes, but it's primarily to test link speed, whether on a workstation or a switch. We also do a point-to-point from building to building and from point A to point B, which is a data center to data center check. It's fiber- and copper-based, so we can do multiple things with it. It's a good tool that gives us a lot of information.

It brings a lot to our organization. It helps us check for bit error rate loss, if someone has complained about a low wireless signal. We can prove to them that there's nothing wrong with it and usually it's an issue on their side. We can check the data port connections and that everything has been done correctly and we can make sure the layout is correct. There's just so much this device does that it's unbelievable sometimes. You don't realize what it can do until you start to play with it.

When it comes to resolving WiFi connectivity and performance problems, the information it gives us is excellent: complete and accurate. It provides the results we need and the ones we go by.

And the AirCheck helps quite a bit for our monitoring purposes. Our team is the smallest one in our organization, but we're also the busiest, and it saves us time. Our network is pretty resilient and pretty diverse and we don't have too many issues, but it helps out quite a bit. It saves us 10 to 15 hours a week. It has also reduced troubleshooting time, knocking it down by 15 to 20 minutes per job.

We use AirCheck G2 in a hospital environment. We use across 30 hospitals and use it to troubleshoot our wireless network. It helps me troubleshoot as well as identifying coverage and interference issues that we encounter throughout our organization. Also, it could be related to SNR readings not being great. Whenever those issues arise, we take care of those issues. 

We can identify issues faster so we can resolve the immediate issue on hand if it is related to coverage or interference. One of the things that is great to know is if there is an offending access point or a rogue access point, then we can identify that and see where it is located within the facility.

I consistently rely on the information that the unit provides. I feel it is accurate.

We are a VAR, providing intermediary services and troubleshooting to customers. AirCheck is a tool we use for installing, testing, and troubleshooting Wi-Fi or wired networks. It's something we leverage while installing access points and identifying problems. 

Our company has around a dozen AirCheck units shared by about three dozen engineers. Their roles range from sales and design to implementing and troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks. All the people using AirCheck on our teams are primarily focused on Wi-Fi, and AirCheck is an excellent tool for supporting those roles.

We use AirCheck as much as possible because we try to use technology relevant to our internal professional services. It's definitely a tool that we don't hesitate to invest in. Every once in a while, we'll have to pick up another unit or two to backfill a new team or something along those lines. We've had some units break, and those need to be replaced, but those units have been abused, so I don't think that reflects the reliability of their devices. If it's dropped 300 feet onto concrete, we must buy a new one. We continue to invest in them. We continue to pay maintenance and support and love what NetAlly has been doing with them.

AirCheck allowed us to replace some lower-end tools from MetaGeek and other smaller players. We've consolidated a few entry-level tools from a couple of different vendors and two features out of a single product. This was a long time ago, but AirCheck allowed us to give our engineers better tools. For example, a junior engineer might request a super-cheap spectrum analyzer, but we'll give them an AirCheck so they can see what a real tool looks like.

They're also affordable enough, so we can be casual with how we distribute them, while they're powerful enough to hold their own against some of the bigger tools. They consistently outperform entry-level tools.

Troubleshooting is often a process of elimination. In some situations, we use AirCheck to do packet captures and ensure the protocol functions properly over the air. Next, we use it to scan channels to see if the channel plan looks correct. We might use AirCheck to do a performance test to determine if there's anything ongoing. It allows us to test all these aspects of a Wi-Fi network, but it also gives us the next step. Once we've confirmed that the Wi-Fi is functioning correctly, we know there is no interference or channel overlap in the area.

If everything else is appropriately configured, the process of elimination prompts us to consider whether there's a bad cable. We can do that ourselves instead of engaging the cable vendor to get somebody on site to plug something into a cable and do a plant test. My engineer needs only to spend 15 or 20 seconds testing that cable. That potentially saves hundreds or even thousands of dollars depending on the location, union rules, etc.

Having that in-the-field ability to do that is invaluable. I am able to take that and then have all of those tests roll up to the cloud so that it doesn't even need to be me on site doing the work. It allows me to put more junior resources on site. It will enable them to solve more problems than they would otherwise. As a manager and administrator, I get a holistic team view of what's happening in the field as my engineers are moving about troubleshooting and deploying wireless networks.

The auto-test feature enables us to distribute our staff resources more efficiently. Auto-test doesn't mean I can send anybody out into the field, but it certainly allows me to send someone who lacks the same comprehensive understanding of Wi-Fi that I or some of my peers have. It will enable us to send a junior engineer who can press one button to get feedback about what's happening. They can forward it to me through Link-Live, so I can assist them if necessary. They can see all sorts of data about what's not working correctly on the infrastructure, and it gives them a safety net.

If everything is good, and they're still having a problem, I can validate those assumptions that they have made. If they run into a problem identified by the auto test, they can call me for advice, or the auto test will point to what they need to do. It allows them not just to identify where that problem is coming from but also gives them actionable information they need to figure out the problem box.

It's just the "easy" button that allows us to build profiles to configure the tester, so our engineers don't have to fuss with building out the profiles or how the test functions. I can give my engineers a straightforward tool, and that's the holy grail. The device is not only easy to use but also rich and comprehensive enough to provide meaningful data. 

Working in this company for a year and counting. I received the task of being mostly responsible for an extensive > 250 id. wireless environment, where there were quite some existing issues. These are mostly related to an ongoing vendor migration going on from one vendor to another.

The Wireless network is both responsible for work-, medical-, client-, and public-related converage (access).

As medical devices are included in this, it's important to have a reliable connnection.

(I am using the latest version. I update it quite frequently.)

In a child-treatment area, quite some issues existed on medical monitoring systems, where they would frequently lose connectivity.  As these resulted in alarms and an increased personnel workload, these had to be minimalized.

Quite a hard hard task to troubleshoot, especially without anaylizing tools.

While we could do some basic monitoring, AirCheck really helped me out. I could simulate the medical devices. I can connect to the device and do a full check of the area to troubleshoot what is happening. In this case, I noticed that we had some interference and overlapping channels. So, the device was immediately useful.

In a way AirCheck made a lot of children and caregivers quite happy. While I might not have resolved everything, I have reduced the problems considerably.

Where there were about three or four of those alarms daily. I was able to reduce it to once or twice a week.

As the appliances are quite limited in their wireless capabilities, a complete avoidance is mostly impossible here.