AirMagnet Survey PRO Reviews

I have been using AirMagnet for clients to do WiFi surveys. This is pretty much an AP-on-a-Stick survey. Right now, I'm on a deployment in which we are using it for a validation.

Everything about the AirMagnet is useful. It's good for work, giving us our SSID and throughput readings for the AC that is currently available. We have been using it primarily for the 2.4 and 5 GHz to create standard heat maps for their standard coverage.

They need to get it up to speed with surveying and using the product on a tablet-based platform. Sometimes you don't have a stylus with you and you don't have the right-click functionalities in certain areas, like with the merge.

If you have a mouse, as was the case in previous years, I always used it on a laptop. It was right-click, data merge up, and SVD files.

I've been using the SurfacePro 4 for the last couple of months with AirMagnet. It just has the right-click functionality. It does not respond well in AirMagnet with the stylus. There are certain things you can do, but there are other things you can't do. It's very finicky as far as picking up right-clicks.

Some more functionality with tablets would be good. Just to make sure that it runs smoothly and you can do everything on the tablet that you could do on the laptop.

With previous versions, there was a way to exclude erroneous data. Anything over a certain decibel rating would not be included in the final merge of the data, which was pretty neat. That got taken out in Version 9.1.

The only thing that I've seen people struggle with is reading the floor plan as they're walking. I was discussing this with my co-worker.

It would be great if there were a way to have the floor plan actually flip with you as you're walking. That would require having some kind of GPS integrated indoors, which I don't even know if it's possible to have an indoor GPS survey. It would be sort of like Pokemon. You just walk around, and whatever is inside the tablet will just walk around with you.

I’ve used AirMagnet for about six or seven years.

Stability is not really too good when you have larger floor plans. Some of the floor plans that we imported into the AirMagnet software were almost 80,000 square feet. If you have a floor plan that big, it's unresponsive and lagging as far as capturing data and being responsive to the initial clicks.

There are some issues with the drivers as well. I guess that would be more of a user error. If you don't unload the drivers properly, you get blue screens and it crashes.

As far as what I have been using it for, we have not had scalability problems. But there were definitely scalability issues in the past.

It's been a long time since I've had to do an overly large floor plan. I haven't really looked through the floor plans for this site yet. As far as I know, everything should be smaller and run smoothly. It can handle a good amount of what we do.

It crashes only if you have too large of a floor plan or you're trying to merge a lot of data together. It does get hung up. I am using an i7 processor now that has plenty of RAM on the tablet.

Sometimes it could be an issue that the computer can handle, but the solution cannot handle it.

The quality of technical support varies for me. I was a 1099 contractor for quite some time. The AirMagnet software was actually provided to me through another company.

I wouldn't necessarily have the Gold service support like I've had with companies in previous years. It's been a really long time since I've had to call into support.

Ever since I started doing these WiFi surveys or site surveys, I've mostly used AirMagnet.

The initial setup for me was just a download of the software and then installing the right drivers. It was pretty straightforward on my end.

As far as pricing and renewing the licenses and things of that nature, I've only really had to do that once for my company.

From what I remember a couple years back, we were going through a phase where we did have to log in to my AirMagnet website account. I needed to remove all the people who left the company or their licenses were expired. From what I remember, I got pretty straightforward answers when I called support.

I don't remember if we evaluated other options. The only other survey software that I know that's out there is Ekahau. It acts similar to AirMagnet.

As soon as I started in this field doing the WiFi surveys, it's always been AirMagnet. It seems to be used very widely throughout the wireless community. There are very limited choices for software that provides the type of data that AirMagnet provides.

Definitely take the courses that they offer. I acquired the AirMagnet 30 and 40 certificates for running AirMagnet Survey Pro and the Spectrum Analyzer. It is pretty much the same learning base.

Teaching people how to use the tool is pretty straightforward if you just explain it to them. You need to teach about data merging or merging certain paths together.

• Planning module: I use it for wireless network deployment during construction stages.
• Survey module: Provides a wireless coverage map and spectrum data integration. This is useful for checking wireless coverage and performance.

Before using this product, we did wireless project designs using a rough estimate of how the wireless networks will appear. Very often, the final quantity was not the same as it was planned on paper.

With AirMagnet Survey, we can make a floor plan import. We can use AutoCAD floor plans which include the walls, doors, windows, and materials designed by engineers. The survey can apply these characteristics by itself, which decreases the time necessary to prepare floor plans.

The solution automatically calculates the required number of access points, which is very close to the final quantity actually needed.

After deploying the access points, we make a coverage map report for customers. The report includes the data about interference, physical data rates, noise level, signal noise ratio coverage, user capacity, and throughput.

The tool helps us to fully support 802.11 a/b/n/g/ac standards.

AirMagnet Survey very useful for designing and deploying wireless 802.11n/a/b/g/ac projects, in any companies from small offices to large campus buildings.

We have used this solution for about five years.

No, it is very simply deploying.

Yes, normally it happens with any product of different vendors. We have had a problem with reporting module, it can't put the full size picture of floor plan in report. After we initiated several support cases these problems was solved with new release.

A year ago, there was a problem with huge floor plan pictures which were causing the software to hang during reporting. It was solved with the release update.

Special for existing customers they have an AirMagnet Account, where you can see all yours registered products and any documents for it.
Also if there is a new release, you can download it from there. As for me there is all nesessary and usefull information.

Technical support it is one of important things that customers appreciate. NETSCOUT has very qualified engineers who help very fast with every question.

We used Ekahau Site Survey. It is also a good quality product, but they are still growing and have a lot of bugs. These guys try to do their best and it looks like they are professional.

We chose AirMagnet Survey because it was recommended by Cisco. We like the functionality of it. Of course, the main reason was the localization of reports into Russian, which we need in our country.

AirMagnet is a very stable and time-tested product. It proves that the world's leading IT companies use AirMagnet Survey. When we look at the release notes, we can see a lot of new features instead of bug fixes, as is the case with Ekahau Site Survey.

Installation is very simple. You just need to register the software key on an AirMagnet web account, then download and install the software on your PC. This is all done by just clicking the "Next" button.

The price is not so high compared with other products with the same quality level. My recommendation is for customers to periodically renew your support contract. Some software releases contain new and interesting features that you can only download if you have an active support contract.

Because this product now belongs to NETSCOUT, I'm sure they will develop more interesting and useful features.

Before purchasing this solution, we evaluated the software of each AirMagnet product: AirMagnet Survey PRO, AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer, and AirMagnet Spectrum XT.

We compared it with Ekahau Site Survey, as it is only quality product with the same functionality. However, our purchasing decision was AirMagnet Survey.

Before purchasing the solution, request an evaluation license to test it. Think carefully and then chose a product which is stable, useful, and very famous in the IT industry.

• The planner
• Latest data on AP and antenna propagation
• More accurate representation of attenuation than Cisco Prime

AirMagnet is one of two survey software tools that are recognized by the industry. We often are requested to use AirMagnet for surveys.

Compatibility with other adapters and drivers for Windows 10, and the licensing methods need improvement.

I have been using AirMagnet for four to five years.

Often, AirMagnet will crash and you will have to reboot your laptop or tablet to start it again. Data will be lost if you haven’t saved it.

Large sites are often an issue. It requires a lot of CPU and RAM.

Technical support is very good. We have Gold support.

We didn’t have any previous solutions.

Setup was very easy; a straightforward installation and almost fully automated.

Make sure you don’t go over one year without licensing. Otherwise, you will have to buy the full product. It’s a lot cheaper to keep it licensed.

We looked at Ekahau. We found it user friendly but it feels too simple. Heat maps aren’t granular. It’s great for the customer though, from non-technical point of view.

Definitely do the training and study CWNA or CCNP Wireless.

The Spectrum Expert is very useful in troubleshooting, and just day-to-day operations of wireless engineering.

It just makes the whole process of doing wireless network surveys way smoother, and way faster. It does the same for any kind of wireless network troubleshooting.

I would just like to see integration of more wireless cards to have a broader group of cards you could use, instead of just a couple of specific ones.

I would like some more documentation, or training materials. I know I don't use the software to it's full capability. A lot of it's just because I don't know it's full capability. It's probably out there and I just haven't found it, or looked for it hard enough, either.

I have used this for four years.

I don't believe we have had any stability issues with the software itself. I have had some issues, but I believe it was related to the actual laptop that the software was running on. I don't believe it was the software or AirMagnet product issue.

I haven't seen any problems in the uses I have used it for, but I haven't really done any large-scale testing with it. Most of the stuff I do is fairly small-scale stuff.

I have had to call support a few times over some minor issues, and I never had any problems. I would rate them 5/5.

This is the first and only solution I have used.

Setup was pretty straightforward. When I started using it, it was already set up. I just got a rundown from somebody else that was familiar with it. It seemed pretty straightforward.

I did not evaluate any alternatives.

It is a good product and has good support. There is a lot of positive feedback from the wireless community, or networking community, so it's a trusted brand.

We do site surveys, so we use the Spectrum Analyzer and we use the Site Survey PRO to get a good feel of the signal strength in the company.

It gives a good view of the signal strength. There are other tools in the market as well, but we work with this one. I'm not sure why we choose this one, but it helps us to give a good feel of the network, the wireless coverage plan, the signal strength, signal-to-noise ratio, and so on.

I would like it to be able to automatically calculate the best way to place the access points; more like hybrid manual planning. I'm not sure if the product has that already, but we are not using it, at least.

Other products in this area do more automatic planning. You just give it the wall measurements and the area, and then it plans how many access points you need and where to place them. So, instead of going to the site, you fill in, per wall, the value of the loss. The program will calculate automatically the best place for the access point.

Then, you can check that with the Site Survey, whether it's a good measurement or not.

I have been working for this company the last half year now, so I’ve worked with this tool at least a half a year.

We have not had stability issues. The tool works great. Most of the time, it does what we want.

We have not had scalability issues.

So far, we haven’t needed technical support for this product.

We did not switch. At my previous company, I used another tool. Our company did not switch. We are still using this tool on a daily basis.

Initial setup was not complex.

I cannot provide any advice about pricing and licensing, since I'm just an assistant manager. I'm not involved in licensing and pricing. We do the AirMagnet training internally. All new employees get a demo from the other co-workers.

This product was chosen before I started working here.

If they want a good feel of the network, it has all the tools and information you need to know for problems with coverage and signal strength. It gives a great view of the network that you have in your wireless environment.

The whole program itself benefits me. We use all of it when we're doing our surveys. The surveys, just the software in general, all of it works great. We've done hundreds of these surveys and with very few issues and problems.

The software is pretty much the same as it was three years ago. I wouldn't say there has really been anything that we've added to the software that's any different than when we first started.

Better integration of the Spectrum XT. Instead of just having the basic information of your spectrum analysis alongside Pro, I'd like to see the full report, and actually be able to highlight over where I walked and what I saw at that point in the walk. I'd like to be able to arrow over a certain area and say, "okay, this is what was going on in that area as far as Spectrum XT."

Also, another good thing would be to have a notes page that as you're doing your survey, you can take notes and say, "in this area I noticed that there was glass features", or to be able to notate in certain areas as you walk around.

We've been using it for about three years now.

It does crash once in a while, but it just seemed like it was maybe the computer we were using wasn't processing fast enough. We did some things with the computer, and it ended up being okay where it wasn't really crashing it anymore. I don't know if the software that was doing it. Maybe it was more our PC.

We did have scalability issues. We were running tons of these reports and they would all back up and build up in our computer. We ended up moving it to a new computer because it just couldn't handle that amount of information. Once we did, it seemed like it worked fine. Now we archive a lot of the data off the computer and keep it off the computer. It seems to run pretty good.

It's been a long time since we've called techncial support, but I do remember it being a good experience and them handling what we needed. I would say it's probably an 4/5.

We didn’t use anything previously. We started off with AirMagnet. It was required by our customers that we had to use Fluke AirMagnet. It was like a specification. That's why we started with AirMagnet and we're still using it today.

Setup was pretty straightforward, but it does take a fair amount of time to understand everything that you're doing. That's the only thing I can say. There's a lot of great features in there, but unless you play around with it for quite some time, you're not going to know what those features are. As far as a basic survey goes, you can be up and running and doing one of those in a day, but to really give the customer a real good insight onto either design or maybe some issues with the current install, you have to know where to find that information in the software and provide that for them.

It's all there, but it does take a little bit of time. As you go through multiple projects, you start to learn where those features are.

It was a very specific requirement from our customers. We didn’t look at anything else. That's why we got that software. It was because a customer had asked us to do several of their sites, but the idea was that it would have to be done by Survey Pro and Spectrum XT.

Nowadays, it almost seems like you can get by without having to purchase the software and have somebody run the scan. In a lot of cases, you can just download the stuff off of Cisco's website and use theirs. You're pretty much going to get the same results. I guess my advice is don't spend too much money. You don't need it as much as you used to. Customers don't even require that we even do these walks anymore. What they've done is through the years, they've realized that they can almost have their own IT guys do it and run just any old brand software off the web for free or for really, really inexpensive, and they can get the same results.

We use the AirMagnet Survey tool to predetermine where we need to place wireless access points in our buildings and within construction areas.

It's been about three months since we've used it, and we just purchased an OptiView XG tablet from NetScout that has that installed on it. It's very pricey, but my boss gave me the money to buy one, so I was happy about that. It cost us about $36,000, but we were able to afford it, so life is good. But we have not used that tablet yet. We're still using an older version on our laptops, so we haven't made the switch internally. We're hoping to do that in the new year.

The product takes away the guessing. It gives us hard evidence on how to engineer and determine where we need to place wireless access coverage or points for optimal coverage. We use the tool to help us engineer our wireless network.

It's been working for us, so I'm good. It does everything we ask it to do.

We've been using it for about five years.

Occasionally, it crashes or locks up. Every now and then, it just stops working and we reboot the system and then go again. It hasn't happened enough that we've opened a ticket on it.

We have not used technical support. We just reboot our system and move on. I'd be more concerned if it happened frequently.

We have never used a different solution.

It was straightforward and easy. The training piece is an ongoing issue, in that the software does have a lot of functions. Getting comfortable with all those functions has been time consuming. We only uswe the software maybe four or five times a year, so we just chalk it up to not using the software enough.

We evaluated Ekahau.

I would definitely say that as far as implementing, get a demo, run it, and make sure it will work in your environment. Then, if you're comparing it with another product, do your homework and run your tests. But, we found for our needs, the AirMagnet Survey tool was the best product.

The passive survey tool is what we use the most. We use it to:

• Conduct wireless surveys of our wireless deployment.
• Verify or adjust wireless coverage within our environment.

The survey tool helps our department verify coverage areas and signal strength levels within campus buildings that have wireless network access available.

I would like to see a clearer representation of different power readings/levels when the survey tool renders heat maps.

We have been using this solution for three years.

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

Technical support was excellent. They are always very helpful.

The tool has a slight learning curve. AirMagnet has “how-to” videos that quickly teach you how to use the tool like a master.

It’s worth the investment. The survey tool pays for itself.

Try out the tool. You will find out quickly that the AirMagnet survey tool is the most versatile tool out there.