An App That Lets You "See" Wireless Networks?

Someone used a stepper motor setup and scanned a 3D volume. They found the reception strength changed a lot, inch by inch.
 
What sensor in a tablet/phone would even have the ability to detect (accurately) that kind of information?

Seems like it would need to know direction and strength of the signal at a very precise level.

I could see a device being built able to do this... I am not so sure the existing equipment in consumer products are as flexible as a tricorder.
 
Elf_Boy said:
What sensor in a tablet/phone would even have the ability to detect (accurately) that kind of information?

Seems like it would need to know direction and strength of the signal at a very precise level.

I could see a device being built able to do this... I am not so sure the existing equipment in consumer products are as flexible as a tricorder.
Click to expand...

wifi sensor.
 
I find this hard to believe in order to ping em/radio waves in this way and build a three dimensional structure to visualize just from your phone. I'll believe it when I see it on my phone.
 
Elf_Boy said:
What sensor in a tablet/phone would even have the ability to detect (accurately) that kind of information?

Seems like it would need to know direction and strength of the signal at a very precise level.

I could see a device being built able to do this... I am not so sure the existing equipment in consumer products are as flexible as a tricorder.
Click to expand...

I had an app on google Nexus7 that could detect strength and location of a wifi signal. It acted like a gieger counter, closer you moved to the signal the stronger the signal would get.
 
rezerekted said:
I had an app on google Nexus7 that could detect strength and location of a wifi signal. It acted like a gieger counter, closer you moved to the signal the stronger the signal would get.
Click to expand...

WiFi Analyzer, use it all the time on my Nexus 7 troubleshooting customers wireless issues. :cool:
 
Knowing your signal strength at an array of points in the room and visualizing the signal strength around you are two very different things. With the former, we've already seen the heatmaps people have made just by logging signal strength with GPS as they walked around a room.

This other method seems like you'd need a very sensitive directional antenna array to get any kind of usable resolution (which would still be limited by the wavelength used). And with the way signals can reflect, the visualization wouldn't necessarily be an accurate indication of the signal in that area once you move there.
 
Jim Kim said:
WiFi Analyzer, use it all the time on my Nexus 7 troubleshooting customers wireless issues. :cool:
Click to expand...
That app is a must have.

The way it presents info is so damn easy to understand, even for non-tech savvy people.

I usually tell people, "Here's you, and here's 4 of your neighbors. Notice they are all on the same channel? That means there are having 4 different conversations while everyone is screaming down the same hallway."

9 times out of 10, the issues stem from everyone leaving their routers on the same default channel 6 on the 2.4ghz band. What I find even funnier is that hardly anyone sets up the 5ghz where there are 20+ channels even though most wireless devices in the last few years are fully capable of it.
 
I'm guessing they have the GPS coordinates of the celltowers and probably use an augmented reality / onboard gyro to overlay an animation that is tied to the signal strength.
 
Its a visualization of data.

There is nothing anywhere stating its realtime (would like to see someone building a 3d map with only one sensor...). I assume they have aggregated data from multiple sensors in various fashions and then processed it for 3D spatial visualization.
 
If the wireless device/receiver in question is a 3 antenna MIMO type device (802.11ac) then it actually does have the capability to roughly triangulate the spatial location of wireless transmitters and build a 3D "heatmap" of the data -- especially if you move around and it is able to continue to acquire information.

I'm not saying this product or the video is actually real -- I'm just saying that given the correct commercial receiver, something SIMILAR is probably possible.

Honestly, some of the output from Ubiquiti's wireless node management software isn't all that far from this.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
That app is a must have.

The way it presents info is so damn easy to understand, even for non-tech savvy people.

I usually tell people, "Here's you, and here's 4 of your neighbors. Notice they are all on the same channel? That means there are having 4 different conversations while everyone is screaming down the same hallway."

9 times out of 10, the issues stem from everyone leaving their routers on the same default channel 6 on the 2.4ghz band. What I find even funnier is that hardly anyone sets up the 5ghz where there are 20+ channels even though most wireless devices in the last few years are fully capable of it.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I keep trying to explain this to some people at a locale fraternity I take care of.

Maybe 1/4th of the students have laptops/tablets/phones that can access 5Ghz signals -- the rest are stuck on 2.4Ghz.

We have approximately 100 members needing to access the internet and they have 2-3 devices each.

Now realize that the fraternity is adjacent to a University campus and also adjacent to several apartments, a hotel, and a row of restaurants.

At any given time, I'm picking up ingress from between 60-80 networks external to our building at signal strengths strong enough to be noticeable (of which 3 are 5Ghz and the rest are at 2.4Ghz).

And I then try to explain to them why their wireless speed sucks and I get totally blank looks.
 
how accurate is the strength sensing of the sensor? It could easily do that with a few data points,and then perhaps extrapolate all the other data .
 
@Steve

Well as far as app development on mobile platforms go (I am not developer BTW LOL)
Mobile App development had been advancing fast hence I could say yes this might be a REAL app.
Heck there is even now a VHS Camcorder which I find pretty amazing (I know its OT) but as long as R&D is a big deal to these guys then anything is possible, look at that Lexus Hoverboard (Yeah I know - Magnets)
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
That app is a must have.

The way it presents info is so damn easy to understand, even for non-tech savvy people.

I usually tell people, "Here's you, and here's 4 of your neighbors. Notice they are all on the same channel? That means there are having 4 different conversations while everyone is screaming down the same hallway."

9 times out of 10, the issues stem from everyone leaving their routers on the same default channel 6 on the 2.4ghz band. What I find even funnier is that hardly anyone sets up the 5ghz where there are 20+ channels even though most wireless devices in the last few years are fully capable of it.
Click to expand...

Actually on the 2.4 range it is better if everyone is on the same channel, far less cross talkas has been shown alot more lately, kind of making the "everyone go to a different channel" thing a myth, only if people do 1/6 and 11 but ignore all other channels. But if 5Ghz is there for sure use it..
 
MrGuvernment said:
Actually on the 2.4 range it is better if everyone is on the same channel, far less cross talkas has been shown alot more lately, kind of making the "everyone go to a different channel" thing a myth, only if people do 1/6 and 11 but ignore all other channels. But if 5Ghz is there for sure use it..
Click to expand...

I would love to see evidence of this as flies in the face of Net+ and Cisco CCNA training (I'm certified in both), traditional line of thinking on the subject, as well as my own anecdotal evidence.

Not saying it isn't possible, but I will believe it when I see it.
 
I'm not even going to spend the time to call BS on this video. Could they have developed something like a volumetric heat mapper? Sure they could, but whatever was in that video wasn't it and was pure nonsense.
 
bigstusexy said:
I'm not even going to spend the time to call BS on this video. Could they have developed something like a volumetric heat mapper? Sure they could, but whatever was in that video wasn't it and was pure nonsense.
Click to expand...

Pretty much what I was coming to say. They added some cute vector graphics to the equivalent of netstumbler. Nothing in that video even remotely resembles how em waves propagate nor would it be able to detect the type of antenna or transmit power of any other device.

Is such a device possible? Yes, but not for a $0.99 app.
 
Actually, they way I could see this work is if the wifi adapter records the signal strength and the GPS to record a map of the signal strength while you walk around and then use this data to create an overlay using augmented reality on top of whatever your camera shows. So basicly this would be a two step process. Totally possible if they dont pretend realtime. Most likely not the most accurate system but to troubleshoot coverage/interference issues it would work.
 
Were is the edit button? I meant to write: the wifi adapter records the signal strength while the gps logs the coordinates.
 
Darunion said:
Pretty much what I was coming to say. They added some cute vector graphics to the equivalent of netstumbler. Nothing in that video even remotely resembles how em waves propagate nor would it be able to detect the type of antenna or transmit power of any other device.

Is such a device possible? Yes, but not for a $0.99 app.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It's pretty cool having access to tools like WiSpy at work though, even if it doesn't let you "see" the waves, it does show you how the signal really looks, interference and all.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
I would love to see evidence of this as flies in the face of Net+ and Cisco CCNA training (I'm certified in both), traditional line of thinking on the subject, as well as my own anecdotal evidence.

Not saying it isn't possible, but I will believe it when I see it.
Click to expand...

You might wanna go back and read your material again then. While he worded his response in a clunky way he's right. Anybody that uses channels other than 1,6, and 11 are assholes because they create more crosstalk. Each primary channel uses the next 5 channels for communication. So, someone that is configured to use Channel 2-5 as their primary is creating crosstalk with any other APs that are configured to use Channel 1 or 6 as their primary...hence, an asshole.
 
There are 2 dimensional ways of scanning a place, but you have to scan the place by yourself. I wonder how this works.
 
Methadras said:
I find this hard to believe in order to ping em/radio waves in this way and build a three dimensional structure to visualize just from your phone. I'll believe it when I see it on my phone.
Click to expand...


There's software out there that does something similar. They require more than one antenna though last I saw any in action. However, with the accelerometers and gyros in phones and tablets you might be able to implement similar if you want to bounce around the room for a bit with your tablet like you are a human roomba, and speed to produce the data isn't at a premium.

ITs' not like the stuff that did similar was cheap by any means, so there a good bit of room to make up for it being cheaper.
 
USMCGrunt said:
You might wanna go back and read your material again then. While he worded his response in a clunky way he's right. Anybody that uses channels other than 1,6, and 11 are assholes because they create more crosstalk. Each primary channel uses the next 5 channels for communication. So, someone that is configured to use Channel 2-5 as their primary is creating crosstalk with any other APs that are configured to use Channel 1 or 6 as their primary...hence, an asshole.
Click to expand...
He said "everyone on the same channel", not channels 1,6,11. That's a big difference, since what he said implies everyone uses the same channel, e.g. channel 6 default. Had he worded it like you, then he would have been correct. Several Wifi networks in close proximity all using the same channel are essentially creating their own packet loss when devices transmit at the same time.
Here's a hypothetical situation (2.4ghz only):
Imagine 4 houses on a block and 3 channels to work with (1,6,11). 2 houses on 1 side of the street, 2 on the other. You want 2 houses diagonal from each other to be on same channel since they are the furthest away. The 2 others houses would be on the remaining channels. Start breaking things into quads and you can do an entire neighborhood.

In other words...
[1] [6] [9] [1] [6] [9]
[9] [1] [6] [9] [1] [6]

This works well when buildings are far away from each other like houses in a neighborhood, but not necessarily when extreme close proximity like apartment buildings or dormitories. The solution to this stupid predicament is to go 5ghz only, where there are 20 channels (other available channels vary by region) and very little crosstalk. I did this at my apartment where I'm the only person on 5ghz. I get full signal over a hundred feet away. My passworded guest network on 2.4ghz barely gets 30 feet.
 
mdburkey said:
If the wireless device/receiver in question is a 3 antenna MIMO type device (802.11ac) then it actually does have the capability to roughly triangulate the spatial location of wireless transmitters and build a 3D "heatmap" of the data -- especially if you move around and it is able to continue to acquire information.

I'm not saying this product or the video is actually real -- I'm just saying that given the correct commercial receiver, something SIMILAR is probably possible.

Honestly, some of the output from Ubiquiti's wireless node management software isn't all that far from this.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

The netgear nighthawk has beamforming.

What is beamforming and how does my Nighthawk X6 R8000 router use this feature?



Beamforming means that your router actively tracks clients and directs pinpoints Wifi to the client, rather than just blasting it out in all directions. This means better WiFi range and performance for your WiFi devices.

The router uses explicit and implicit beamforming to improve WiFi performance. Explicit beamforming requires the client to support beamforming typically 802.11ac clients support beamforming. Implicit beamforming means the router can support beamforming even with clients that do not support beamforming. This router supports implicit beamforming for both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz clients, which means that it will provide beamforming benefits of better range and performance for all
Click to expand...
 
Beamforming actually does send the signal out in all directions -- it's just that it doesn't finally end up that way. It sends the same signal from the three different spatially located antennas at three specific signal strengths and at slightly different offsets in time -- which means that, thanks to constructive/destructive interference, that the signal coalesces and effectively adds ups to the strength of all three transmissions at the targeted node location and the signals interfere with each other at other locations and actively REDUCE signal interference for (almost) everyone else around you.

So, usually, beamforming is not only good for you, it's good for your neighbors too because it effectively reduces the amount of your signal interfering with their network.

The usually comes in in my own specific situation -- which is trying to keep the WiFi network up at a fraternity adjacent to campus. We have our own wireless network that covers our building and campus has their own VERY expensive high end network that they recently upgraded with some of the most powerful, centrally managed, beamforming 802.11ac WAP's currently available. Normally, everything works pretty well -- I can detect their network (which has units on 1, 6, AND 11, plus 4-5 5Ghz channels too), but it is only at about a 10-15% signal strength and usually doesn't cause any headaches. Then one of the fraternity brothers in the common room will go and try and connect his phone/laptop/tablet/etc to the campus WiFi rather than ours. As soon as their network detects this connection attempt, it begins explicitly beamforming a signal to him -- and it is like their transmitters are now shining a spotlight on him in our common room (and everything within about 15 feet of him -- including our access point). When this happens, the signal level we detect their network at jumps from 10% to 90-100% -- and our own network, which often strains to keep up in the unbelievably crowded WiFi environment around us anyway (60+ competing access points), immediately grinds to a near halt.

So, beamforming really can work unbelievably well -- unless you are on the receiving end of it and trying to compete with its signal.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top