Visualise the Spectrum
| As the 2.4 GHz ISM Band becomes more popular (and more congested) interference from non-Wifi devices can seriously degrade Wi-Fi performance. Other Wi-Fi tools, such as NetStumbler and Kismet only provide information about other Wi-Fi devices, but do not show interference from cordless phones, microwaves, Bluetooth devices, Zigbee, and other 2.4 GHz devices. Wi-Spy™ is the only currently available tool under $2500 that shows you signal strength across the entire 2.4 GHz Band at the radio frequency (RF) level instead of just guessing. |
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Pick a Quiet Channel for Your Access Point
Wi-Spy shows you at a glance what Wi-Fi channels are quiet and what channels you should avoid if possible. This makes it easy to pick a quiet channel for your access point instead of picking your favorite number between 1 and 11. Notice in the image above that the Wi-Fi download stalls while the microwave oven is cooking and remains stalled for about 20 seconds after the microwave stops. When the access point is moved to channel 1 the microwave oven causes Wi-Fi retransmissions (indicated by the more intense WI-Fi traffic while the microwave oven is cooking), but the Wi-Fi download never stalls. "Wi-Spy is cheap, small, and easy enough to use that it can be a major step towards compensating or eliminating interference with your WLAN." -Wi-Fi Planet |
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Find and Avoid Interferers
If your Wi-Fi begins to slow down it could be due to interference from other devices. Wi-Spy will show you if there are interferers using the channel you have selected. Wi-Spy also measures the average signal strength on each frequency of the 2.4 GHz ISM Band so that you can see what channels are being interfered with most frequently. If interference is sporadic you can record the Wi-Spy data for later analysis.