Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector: A Good, Free Troubleshooting Tool
I’ve written before about optimizations for home and office Wi-Fi networks and how to keep public Wi-Fi sessions secure. Xirrus has long provided free tools for monitoring Wi-Fi performance, finding hotspots and more. Now, the company is out with Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector, and after giving it a try, I recommend it, especially if you suspect you’re not getting ideal performance from your wireless networking.
Here’s what’s under the hood, and a tool you can use to complement Wi-Fi Inspector.
Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector is basically a free, improved version of Xirrus’ long-standing Wi-Fi gadet application. It’s designed for managing and troubleshooting a laptop’s Wi-Fi connection in addition to scanning and monitoring the Wi-Fi environment. There is a complete inventory of its capabilities here. (PDF)
You can use Wi-Fi Inspector for searching for and locating Wi-Fi networks, such as hotspots; managing laptop Wi-Fi connections; troubleshooting connectivity issues; verifying the Wi-Fi range you’re getting; and locating rogue access points. I used its four-step process for IP address information that let me know I was communicating with my Wi-Fi network correctly, and ran a series of ping tests to see how my performance was faring. The results of the tests are displayed on a radar-like graphic (showing available Wi-Fi networks, for example) and in table format. You can get at your signal level, security level, and more.
It’s very easy to end up with less than ideal Wi-Fi performance. If Wi-Fi tests let you know that performance is sub-optimal, that’s a good time to experiment with the location and orientation of your router and your access points, among other things.
Wi-Fi Inspector also sends packets to an external Internet server and reports on the actual throughput you’re getting. For these types of tests, I also strongly recommend QCheck, a free, similar tool that tests network throughput and wireless performance from several angles. To really keep your finger on the pulse of your Wi-Fi network, use both of these applications.
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Whatever, let us know when we can drag the Xirrus interface open larger than 4″ by 2″, and don’t have to install hundreds of megabytes of platform support software to run it. I had a fully-developed hate for this program within 5 minutes of launching it. This program is only for your brand new quad-core executive portable.
I prefer “inSSIDer”, which is very lightweight, has most of the features i’d like in a stumbler, and is both attractive and intuitive to use.
You forgto to mention that it is Microsoft Windows only.
I’ve been using the Xirrus gadget for a long time and have always been very happy with it. They have multiple versions of the gadget for different operating systems so I’m sure they will do the same for the Inspector. This application just launched, give them a break. They provide awesome tools for Wi-Fi detection and I’m willing to wait for them to produce versions compatible with other operating systems.
this information very nice.Voice IP Comms are the Premier Provider of business telephone systems in the UK.
Just wanted to let you know that the new version of the Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector is out!
Download for free here: http://www.xirrus.com/library/wifitools.php
The Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector is a powerful tool for managing and troubleshooting the Wi-Fi on a Windows XP SP2 or later, Vista, or 7laptop. Built in tests enable you to characterize the integrity and performance of your Wi-Fi connection. Applications include:
Searching for Wi-Fi networks
Managing and troubleshooting Wi-Fi connections
Verifying Wi-Fi coverage
Locating Wi-Fi devices
Detecting rogue APs