Ekahau Site Survey Reviews

Most of the surveys I conduct are with Ekahau Site Survey, which I use for site surveys and planning. I rely on it when there are Wi-Fi issues. I examine the package to understand the Wi-Fi configuration and assess the situation. After that, I identify any issues and use Ekahau for the surveys. I primarily focus on warehousing for planning, but I also handle site surveys for events. For example, using Ekahau, I conducted the survey and planning for the King Baldwin Stadium in Brussels, where Coldplay performed two years ago.

The most important feature is the Sidekick, which allows us to see what’s happening during the survey, including spectrum analysis.

Ekahau is a great tool for planning, assessments, and post-deployment surveys. It excels in those areas.

It took me over a week to fine-tune the reports, but they became impossible to use. That’s one of the reasons we started looking at Hemina. I’ve been using Ekahau for quite some time, and when the Sidekick 2 was released, packet analysis wasn’t supported, even though it was included in my subscription. 

I contacted them for over a year about this issue since packet analysis is essential for my work, but I didn’t receive a response. When I requested support, I was banned from their communications, no invitations for Wi-Fi Day or webinars. If that’s how they treat their partners, it’s clear that our relationship has to change.

I'm renewing my subscription for the last year, but I’m not willing to pay two thousand euros anymore. If they can make me a reasonable offer and provide a discount. The customer experience has been poor. I called my distributor, who checked and confirmed that everything was functioning. To troubleshoot, I created a new account under a different name and received an invitation. When I tried registering with my original account, I was blocked because I had contacted customer support about my issues.

You can use different software; Ekahau is an option, but look at how they treat their customers.' On the other hand, there’s Hemina. They don’t have spectrum analysis yet, but it’s coming. Technically, the Sidekick is still one of the best devices for checking Wi-Fi. However, there are alternative solutions, and you receive support with those alternatives. For me, the support issue is a significant concern.

I have been using Ekahau Site Survey for seven years.

Over the last six months, I encountered issues with Ekahau, especially when saving files to the cloud. Sometimes, not all data was stored correctly. I’d save the first version and continue working on it, but later, when I retrieved the file, it would revert to the initial version, losing work hours.

I rate the solution’s stability a six out of ten.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

The customer support is low. Support is somewhat acceptable because I know the team, but it's lacking when it comes to practical and financial matters. My Ekahau subscription has been inactive since July 2022, and I’m uncertain about renewing due to rising prices and declining customer support. While Ekahau has been the only vendor for a long time, that’s no longer true. Hemina’s software is better. For instance, if an access point isn't supported, I can request it, and they typically incorporate it within days, provided the manufacturer shares the antenna patterns. Hemina’s team is responsive, whether through calls or emails, making it a much better solution for me.

They need to listen to their customers. With Ekahau, the attitude feels like; We’re the biggest and best, so be grateful to pay us two thousand euros each year to use our software.'Since Jussie left the company, the mentality seems to have declined significantly. They’re not listening to feedback, and it feels like they view us merely as a cash cow.

They handle their loyal customers poorly, almost like they’re kicking us when we’re down. I never complained during webinars or put Ekahau in a bad light. I always addressed issues directly with support. I’d point out that I was being charged for a service that wasn’t functioning, and the response was always, 'It’s coming, it’s coming.' A year later, I was still facing the same issues, so I asked about compensation for my investments in packet analysis equipment, which included a multimeter that cost around twenty-one thousand euros. When I inquired about a discount, I was told, 'This is the price. You either pay it or leave.

Negative

I purchased professional licenses from both Ekahau and Hemina. Hemina's software is better overall, though the Sidekick remains superior to Hemina’s current solution. 

One advantage of Ekahau is that when you conduct a site survey, the spectrum analysis data is automatically incorporated into the report. However, that’s the only benefit I see right now. I’ve been using Hemina for six months, and when I have to revisit an older project with Ekahau, it feels like it takes forever to load. I’m still open to renewing my Ekahau subscription for another year, but not at the price of two thousand euros.

It is too expensive.

If no corporate firewall is installed, there aren’t any issues. I experienced some headaches with the license server, but those problems were resolved and weren't significant. Using a SaaS application is even easier since you don’t have to install anything; you log in to the site.

Overall, I rate the solution a four out of ten.

I do validation surveys, so I use the solution to design new surveys and troubleshoot any issues in the network.

The troubleshooting tools are the most valuable feature of the solution. Plus, the fact that you can have all the software you need in one place is really handy and convenient.

I wish the solution was better at making different survey modes, like in AirMagnet. When I use AirMagnet, I can go in and say, "I'm doing a survey on a stick," and then it will go into that "survey on a stick" mode and I can just start doing my survey. Ekahau doesn't have that. If you want to do an AP on a stick survey, each time you complete a section, you have to go in and freeze the AP manually in the software. That just seems archaic, considering AirMagnet had that problem solved ten years ago.

The worst thing about Ekahau in general is their documentation. Trying to find the answer to what you're looking for is really difficult because they constantly change their verbiage, but they don't constantly update the documents. You'll find documents using old verbiage from old versions and you're like, "No, I'm looking for this..."

I've used this solution weekly for the last seven years. 

Up until recently, I would have said that the stability was very good, but recently I've had a lot of problems, to the point where we are actually doing a demo with AirMagnet tomorrow. The stability has just been really bad lately. 

The scalability is really good. I can survey sites with anywhere from five APs to 150 APs, and it works just fine on all of it.

There are three people in our company who currently use this solution: myself, one of my juniors, and my counterpart in Canada. 

The tech support is very hit or miss. It can be really good or it can be really bad, depending on which engineer you get. They don't have a lot of engineers though, so you can generally get the same one if you try. The other problem is that their escalation is in Europe, so if they have to escalate your case, there's a lot of time lost because of the time difference.

There is a bit of a learning curve with the initial setup because if you get the Pro version, you get five pieces of software. 

We pay $6,000 yearly for the licensing, but each piece of hardware, the Ekahau Sidekick, is $5,000. We have three of them, but they're one-time purchases.

I will say that the warranty on those is kind of garbage. The USB-C port on one of ours went loose, which wasn't covered in the warranty, so we had to replace it within a year. That was very expensive. We paid $10,000 in one year for just one Sidekick because their warranty doesn't cover the ports on the device, which is kind of flaky.

I would say that you need to decide what it is you want to do. If you just need to do validation surveys or predictive surveys, Ekahau is fine. I feel like though, if you're going to go out and do an AP on a stick, an actual survey, Ekahau is not as good as AirMagnet in that regard, so you need to know what your use case will be.

I would rate this solution as a seven out of ten. 

We use the solution for wireless site surveys, wireless design, and troubleshooting.

Channel planning, access points' auto position, and the size of the spectrum are valuable to me. I am quite satisfied with the solution.

The information regarding the clients and signal strengths is missing in the Ekahau console.

I have been using the solution for four years.

I rate the stability of the tool a nine out of ten. The older version is more stable compared to the newer one. I downloaded the old version last week. The new version does not allow us to load projects to the cloud.

I rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten. We have six devices in our organization.

Contacting the support team is really easy. When I create a ticket, an engineer is assigned to my ticket in a couple of hours.

Positive

The initial setup was quite easy. We have Ekahau AI Pro. We are also using the cloud version, where we upload the projects and share them with everybody on the team. The visibility of the projects is much easier. The deployment took five days.

We did the deployment in-house.

I have seen an ROI on the solution.

The product is quite expensive. However, it is worth the money since we want a professional solution for site surveys and Wi-Fi design.

We are using Ekahau AI Pro and Ekahau Connect. The products are integrated with the cloud. When I created a new ticket with Ekahau for license validation, the team told me to wait until the new version was deployed. I downgraded to the older version, as they recommended. If we want a professional site survey and a professional design tool, we need Ekahau Site Survey. It is mandatory. Overall, I rate the tool a nine and a half out of ten.

I use this solution for off-site surveys. We are resellers of this solution and I'm a solutions architect working in pre-sales. Our company is based in South Africa.

I like that it's easy to plot the APs and generate reports. It's a good design. The reports Ekahau provides are very professional. The product is mature and provides ease of use regarding large-scale planning and reporting. It's a mature solution. 

I'd like to see the option of an in-app photo application or a way to upload photos while carrying out an active onsite survey. You can obviously use a tablet's camera but it would be helpful to have an automated import of the physical AP in the Ekahau reports. Also, they come out with a lot of updates and it sometimes feels too much. Finally, I'd like to see a function or plugin for Ekahau to pick up on the switches the APs connect to so that you can map out further than just the APs when you do your site survey. It would be great if it could pick up a Mac address of each AP's switches, which would help engineers map out a network topology.

I've been using this solution for four years. 

We're happy with the stability.  

When we started out with the solution, the only support available was via email. It was efficient but sometimes it's preferable to speak to someone. I haven't used the support in a while, but it has improved despite the fact that it's a bit too rigid for my liking. 

I've used AirMagnet once or twice and found it to be cumbersome. Part of it may be that I'm more experienced with Ekahau. This kind of work previously required the manual effort of taking floor plans to sites, along with physical APs to test the coverage and plot out our WiFi design.

The initial setup was straightforward. We had a technical session with Ruckus in South Africa after we'd been using the solution for a year. It was more of a workshop for using Ekahau for Ruckus designs. I carried out the deployment and it took around 20 minutes.

The solution provides good reporting and is easy to use but the pricing is a sore point even though you get what you pay for. This is a very expensive solution, more than double AirMagnet. In terms of the South African rand and economy, it's very expensive. Our annual licensing costs amount to the equivalent of around 9000 euros.

If you have the budget for it, this is a very good product. We've been doing WiFi for quite a long time and we didn't do the online training or use the guides. For anyone new to the solution, it's worth spending a couple of hours with the online help that's available. 

The only downfall is the price so I rate this solution a nine out of 10.

The most valuable feature of Ekahau Site Survey is the predictive survey.

I wish there were a competitor to keep Ekahau Site Survey's pricing in line, but there's none.

I have been working with Ekahau Site Survey for five to six years.

Ekahau Site Survey is a very stable solution. It doesn't crash, and it has a long battery life.

I rate Ekahau Site Survey ten out of ten for stability.

In mining, we have a choice between iBwave, Ekahau Site Survey, and a few other products. All my clients use Ekahau Site Survey.

I rate Ekahau Site Survey ten out of ten for scalability.

Ekahau Site Survey is a really expensive solution.

Ekahau Site Survey is focused on on-site surveys.

I need to know what users want to use the solution for. If they want to use it for their own office, their office better be a big one with plenty of branches. Otherwise, it's not worth it. It's more reasonable to call me to come over to your office and look at your Wi-Fi rather than buy Ekahau Site Survey.

Ekahau Site Survey is the only product that gives you the full flexibility of site survey and on-site survey. There's no other product that can compare to it. That's the problem. If another product can compare, function to function with Ekahau, it's a whole different ball game. Right now, Ekahau dominates the market.

Whenever a tender comes out, people will specify Ekahau, so it's very difficult to move away from it. Since it has become the default product, it's demanding very high prices.

Overall, I rate Ekahau Site Survey a nine out of ten.

Our customers use the solution's software plus Sidekick.

Ekahau Site Survey is user-friendly. The solution is suited best for medium-sized companies.

Ekahau would benefit by making improvements to lag time. Whenever we are performing an active survey, there is a lag with the survey. 

I have been working with Ekahau Site Survey for two years.

The solution is stable.

Ekahau Site Survey is scalable, it is easy to expand. We conduct active service for the organization. There are approximately 70,000 square feet or 400 users per floor.

We have received good support from the customer service team at Ekahau. I do have one outstanding issue that has not been resolved. Overall, I would rate their support a four and a half out of five.

Positive

The initial setup of Ekahau Site Survey is simple. 

Overall, I would rate Ekahau Site Survey an eight out of ten.

We use Ekahau as our primary survey tool for conducting wireless surveys. Our sites range anywhere from small buildings with three access points to large buildings with up to 40 access points. So, we're pretty diverse in using this software. We also do post-surveys by using the software with Sidekick, which is a device that monitors wireless signals.

We use it on a standalone solution. We don't use it in a cloud environment because of the restrictions with getting the government certifications to put it on the network. So, we use it in a standalone environment.

There are some survey tools that are a little easier to use, but the benefit of using the Ekahau is that it is very configurable. If you go into a building that has solid cement walls, instead of traditional walls, you can configure it for that. It is much more configurable than the other ones.

The survey tool is most valuable.

In all of our buildings, whenever we deploy wireless access points, we also have to deploy wireless intrusion detections. The Ekahau Site Survey tool doesn't allow us to differentiate between the access point and the intrusion detection device. That's because they're the same devices, but they're configured differently for the type of usage. That's one area that I would ask them to improve. They should allow the identification of access points versus wireless intrusion detection. 

It is somewhat expensive to renew the licenses every year. Obviously, most places can't maintain that. You would think that if you're not using the software any differently than you were from day one, then the license that you initially purchased would be good from that point forward, but it is not like that.

I have been using this solution for about three years.

It is very stable except for renewing the licenses every year.

It is extremely scalable because you can deploy this solution in many different ways. You can deploy it as a standalone solution. You can deploy it in an enterprise environment or in a cloud environment. It can be deployed however you are capable of deploying it and whatever works best for you. So, it is very scalable.

Currently, just me and the other wireless PMs are using this solution. Because of the license restriction, we can't allow too many people to use it. It has to be pretty much tailored to one or two devices because we can't pass the licenses around to different devices.

It is our primary wireless survey tool. So, it is used pretty extensively.

I haven't really had to use them, but I'm assuming they would be pretty good. Ekahau has been good at everything else, so I'm assuming the technical team would also be very good.

We used something called Virtual Suite. The only reason we used that was that it was open source. We needed somewhere to start. So, we started with that. When we were able to purchase the Ekahau software, we started using it. We've been using it ever since.

It is pretty straightforward. It is not complex. If you've never used survey tools, it would be difficult when you use it for the first time. If you've used survey tools before, then it's no different than any of the other tools.

In terms of the implementation strategy, we had to develop a standalone suite and deploy the software onto those standalone tablets. We just had to load it on standalone computers. Currently, we have to maintain licenses to access the software every year. Other than that, it's not really difficult.

We did it all ourselves. For its deployment and maintenance, we have a staff of two people.

That's a tricky thing. When it started off, we had one three-year license and one one-year license because we have two devices. Now, from my understanding, we can only renew every year or get a one-year license, and that cost varies. Being a government organization, we get a different cost than commercial.

We have deployed it on Surface Pro tablets. So, the only other cost would be the hardware cost.

We evaluated other solutions.

I would highly recommend going to the Ekahau training class. They have a class to train you on how to do surveys. 

I would rate it a 10 out of 10 because as a project manager doing wireless surveys, it gives me all the tools and access that I need to be able to conduct a proper survey. The only thing that it requires is the ability to differentiate between an access point and a wireless intrusion detection device.

We use Ekahau Site Survey to gain complete visibility into how many access points are required and how many will be stable. We can also generate the heatmap for two point four gigahertz or five gigahertz, and it can also let me know what the WiFi signal looks like. We mostly used Ekahau Site Survey to deploy Kahu and perform the migration for the existing value sector where we require a backup signal. 

I like that our users can send us a floor map. Sometimes it's not feasible to travel to another country where the users are based. So, the floor map is very useful. It's a fantastic product. 

It would be better if it provided clear visibility. It would be better if it accommodated large physical sites like a warehouse with a ceiling height of more than twelve to fifteen feet. In such situations, we were unable to provide better coverage.

I have been using Ekahau Site Survey for over seven and a half years.

Ekahau Site Survey is a stable solution. It's the best one in the marketplace.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give stability a ten.

Ekahau Site Survey is a scalable solution.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give scalability a nine.

I reached out to technical support a couple of times, and they were excellent.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward if you know about the thickness of the wall. I believe it has been accurate 90% of the time during the actual deployment. It takes about eight to 12 professionals to deploy this solution.

We implemented this solution. We installed it manually.

I would tell potential users that this tool is really powerful. If you want to implement and enjoy wireless features, buy this solution. You can do it on your own and save costs by not paying someone else to perform the site service. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Ekahau Site Survey a ten.