AirMagnet Survey PRO Reviews

• Predictive survey
• Passive survey after implementation.

It has helped us to survey coverage after implementation.

Passive survey.

There is a feature "no auto-save" when the Proxim USB is disattached accidentally during survey. Newer adapters (adpter that support 802.11ac) not support noise Reading (I'am using Proxim 9100 USB Adapter).

Three to five years.

The primary use is wireless network surveying.

The benefit is with the ease of use of the software, I am able to show the customer, "Here is what your wireless coverage looks like." It is set up in a fashion that non-technical people can understand it.

It is reliable and easy to use (user-friendly). The heat mapping, passive network surveying, and doing the heat mapping of a building's wireless network allows me to see what level of coverage an area has.

Printouts are JPEG printouts. The AirMagnet software is proprietary. I can't send my customers a file, because it is AirMagnet file, even for building projects. I can only send JPEGs or screenshots of heat maps.

We used to have issues with the software freezing up. With the latest versions in the last couple of years, the technology of the notebooks' processing capability has helped us get over the hurdle of the software freezing up because of the data input in large buildings.

I have not used the technical support.

The initial setup was fairly easy to do.

Call the manufacturer directly and talk to them about their product.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

1. Technical functionality
2. Competitive pricing
3. Government pricing discounts.

We use this product in the hospitality, education (K-12), and healthcare industries.

It has helped us when dealing with the hospitality industry.

• Clear and easy to use maps.
• It is easy to upload the maps
  

The pricing needs improvement.

The most valuable feature is the predictive survey. The antennas' RF patterns are reflected correctly on the drawing when preparing predictive heat maps.

The predictive survey creates heat maps which are accurate and save a lot of time. The results are accurate enough to rely on when considering quantities and locations of wireless access points.

This is very helpful, especially when you need to know the required number of access points to price a project. You can rely on the results and the location of access points without an actual survey.

The actual site survey will be useful for fine-tuning. It will be shorter because you will do the survey when you already know the location of access points. You will not have to start from scratch.

The user interface needs a lot of improvement. The auto-placement of access points is not accurate.

User interface:

The UI is missing lots of simple features like multiple selection and modification of objects (access points and walls), undo, re-do, and stable zooming.

After a site survey, it is a hassle to point the access points to their correct location on the drawing. Reports are very basic and bad. Modification and formatting is very tiring. The results depend on the drawing and the site survey without considering the areas excluded from coverage.

Auto-placement:

Auto-placement of access points (for predictive survey) is a basic feature in AirMagnet. You cannot use it because the number of access points will be excessive. You should place access points on the drawing manually, one-by-one based on specs, RF pattern, wall attenuation, obstacles, and your experience.

We have used this solution for three years.

The software crashes frequently which requires you to restart your PC.

AirMagnet has no issues with scalability.

Customer service is good.

Technical support is good and fast. I have contacted technical support couple of times and they know what they are doing.

We used Ekahau, as per a client request. I started using AirMagnet afterwards.

It is easy to setup the software and to start projects.

In-house

For technical support, you need an annual license, but it is not worth it.

I evaluated Ekahau.

If you are going to do predictive surveys, then doing tests and passive site surveys to check wall attenuation is a must. You cannot depend on the default values of concrete and bricks.

The support for multi-floor surveys.

It allows us to prepare more real designs. Later, we validate them with actual surveys.

Less time consumed doing the real surveys.

Since 2012.

The main issue was when you define obstacles for the wi-fi signal, you cannot define the height of them. For example, if you have a brick wall of 1.7 meters (6 ft.) high and on top of it a 60 cm. (2 ft.) window, you are only able to define a 2.20 meters brick wall. For example, this setup is very common in schools where they prefer to have the wi-fi router outside of the classrooms.

In general, it is very stable, most of the issues were with Windows stability.

No.

An eight out of 10.

An eight out of 10.

We acquired this solution to work with Ruckus Wireless eq., the AirMagnet version that we used was a OEM for Ruckus.

It is very straightforward to implement, the only issue is if you change wi-fi for the MAC address.

In-house

Not applicable.

This version was okay in price when it was dedicated to only one vendor. The moment we began needing more of the vendor's support, the cost became very high; we switched to another solution.

Aruba and VRF Plan.

I recommend doing a comparison between the newer version of AirMagnet and Ekahau before purchasing.

We normally use AirMagnet products to meter voltage coming off any number of services at the venues that we go to, or generators in the instance that we're doing something that's a temporary powered situation; so, metering voltage, and then also metering amperage draw.

The biggest mission-critical function would be safety concerns. We are dealing with a lot of real sensitive electronics that can be damaged if the incorrect voltage is sent down to them; so, using the products to ensure the safety of our equipment that we have a lot invested in.

I would say some of our newer techs that are going out to job sites can be a little bit intimidated by the interface. A more user-friendly interface for the meters; knowing which setting to use, if I'm testing amperage, and if I'm testing voltage, which setting do I need to be on. Maybe there's a better way to identify if I'm looking to meter a service and what setting should I have my meter, it needs to be in this position. Or if I'm going to check amperage draw, which setting do I use.

We're talking about a multimeter product, like a voltmeter, and I think that the user interface on the screen and dial could be spelled out better for a novice.
But the physical features are in line with most of the other competitors.

I have been using it for the last five years.

It has been stable.

It definitely is tracking fine for what we're using it for.

We haven't used technical support for five years.

I think if anything we've switched to Fluke because it's definitely a more industry standard. Before, we had used some different products that were more economy-level kind of things.

Setup is straightforward. We were only involved in some of the real smaller, handheld products, like voltmeters and things.

We use commercial electric products, as well, that tend to be a little bit more affordable. But once again, if it is a mission-critical application, sometimes we would lean their way.

I would say that employee training becomes really important, so that everyone who's using the products knows how to use them safely. You know, you're dealing with electricity, so it can get a little dicey.

I use almost all AirMagnet features. For the survey, I use PRO. I use Planner for planning tools. I use WiFi Analyzer for troubleshooting, and XT for the troubleshooting, as well.

The predictive survey has improved the way my organization functions. I use their planner when making the walls. You can create a real-world environment and then come up with the plan for APs. Once everything is in place or if a real-world survey is needed, then the active survey or passive survey is used for that purpose.

For the WiFi Analyzer, if there is trouble in a wireless environment, I use it to see the signal interference, the co-channel interference, the devices, and those kinds of things.

For spectrum analysis, if issues are reported, to check the overall health of the wireless, I use Spectrum XT.

Before AirMagnet, most of the survey work was guesswork, depending on the expertise of the engineer. They used to place the APs, and then go back and do the survey. So, when AirMagnet Survey first became available, that became a lot easier. Before that, there was another tool called Ekahau Site Survey. With AirMagnet, you have all of the solutions, all of the tools, from the one platform.

The worst thing that is built into AirMagnet is, if your laptop crashes in the middle, all of the work you have done is gone. There should be an auto-save functionality. Currently, even if you stop the survey, save it, and your tool crashes, that thing is not saved. The auto-saving should be more reliable, so that your done part is not gone. Auto-saving must be a key factor.

On the survey side, they need to have more adapters to support. In the adapter, there should be more preset values. Because right now, the way the survey tool is designed, you have to set the specific power before you start the survey, but most of the vendors, with the current environment, they are going on automatic power and channel settings. AirMagnet lacks that capability. They need to have an option with the auto-channel and auto-power, so we can come up with more accurate surveys.

Another main problem I have with the tool is, in Spectrum XT, you have to select the band, like 5 GHz, lower, middle, Uni1, Uni2, Uni3 and extended. So you cannot have the whole thing on one screen. That is needed. There should be one screen which has all of the spectrum on the dashboard, so you can see the whole picture in one place, instead of having four screens open. If somebody's using a 10- or 12-inch laptop, a notebook, a tablet, then you can imagine opening four screens side by side, how small they will become.

They need to have a dashboard which will show the entire spectrum on one screen. They could add additional screens. If somebody wants to know further details of a screen, they could open up another screen, like they have in the WiFi Analyzer, which has different tabs. The first tab shows the main screen. Then, if you want to go and look into specific things, you go to that screen.

I've been using the Proxim adapters. They are not really roaming well.

Also, the USB adapter is not reliable with the users. For example, we have the AirMagnet tool on the laptop and everybody uses that USB. If the laptop is gone, you can't assign a license to a laptop. If that is gone, you have to redo the whole thing.

If AirMagnet can come up with their own adapter that is more compatible with their tool, I think that's more preferable. The reason is if you use this Proxim adapter, you get different results. If you use NetGear or some other adapter, you get a different result. The reason is the adapters don't have the same sensitivity on the wireless side. That should be standard, so that we are sure we are getting data that is reliable.

This tool does not work with the drivers of those USB adapters. The adapters and drivers should be more consistent. Changing the adapters should not change the result of the survey.

They need to change the way AirMagnet starts a project. It is exactly the same as when they started in 2004. They have not changed it. They need to change it according to the current wireless settings, according to current wireless environments. It needs to change, because if you look at AirMagnet 4 and AirMagnet 11, the start of the project, and how you build the thing and get to the survey screen, that is exactly the same. Between 2004 and 2016, wireless has changed a lot.

We have been using the solution since 2004.

There were stability issues. It takes up a lot of resources and it crashes in the middle.

It does a pretty good job with scalability, because this is all software which is installed on hardware. It doesn't have hardware. If you have hardware, you still have software installed on it. So, I think there are some tweaks on the software side that need to be more specific for some main vendors: Cisco, Aruba, Motorola and those vendors. If there are some presets for their main antenna patterns, that would be more helpful to do the survey.

I called technical support several times but most of the time, the people I talk to are not so intensively knowledgeable technically. For example, I have 12 years of radio frequency (RF) wireless experience and those people are just sales and support kind of people. So, I don't blame them. I rate technical support 10/10.

When I switched to AirMagnet in 2004-05, I also used Ekahau a little bit and at that time, Ekahau was also at the preliminary stage because wireless was not that popular. AirMagnet was more user friendly and there were more settings that you could tweak. There were more options compared to Ekahau.

I have pretty much stuck with AirMagnet since then.

The setup was easy. That's one of the reasons everybody is using AirMagnet. It is easy to set up, easy to operate.

I just got some of the reviews on the Ekahau tool I used because the other tools and other options available were not enterprise-type. On the enterprise side of wireless survey, Ekahau mostly provided survey tools and other things. But they were not intensive. AirMagnet is a one-stop shop for everything. That's why I'm still sticking to AirMagnet.