Wi-Fi monitoring and reporting software

[erickrause]

I’m interested in a good wi-fi reporting and monitoring software and I have found some - xxxxxxxx 2.0 (http://www.xxxxxxxx.com (http://www.wifi-owl.com) ).
It's free for small networks and promises quite interesting things "... Unlike other Wi-Fi network management products that overwhelm you with technical data, Wifi-Owl™ gives you easy to understand reports about the health of your wifi network and proactive alerts to problems ...".
Has someone tried it already?

[Sooner Al]

For home use or at work? For home use I would consider this a complete waste of money... :cool:

[cszeto]

erickrause, when you mentioned that you have found "some", can you provide a list of the "others" that you also reviewed/looked at? Maybe then we can also take a look and share our overall opinions and impressions? That's what you are soliciting right?

[erickrause]

I tried to use following tools:
1. NetStumbler: there are no reports and alerts to network problems - for home use only
2. WiFi Manager: performance reports only through SNMP, but I have DLink APs which don’t support it.
3. AirMagnet: too expensive, and additional sensors are needed

[cszeto]

If you are just looking to track up/down on connectivity to the wireless AP, then some of the ping-type monitoring tools will do just that. A lot of them include graphing and reporting as well as alerts.

"xxxxxxxx" hinted that it did some form of traffic throughput analysis, but did not get into any details. Other than that, it seems to be no different than any other ping-type monitoring package.

If you are trying to "fit" something like this for a business environment, you might try http://www.enterpriseitplanet.com. They also have a forum too and it is geared at business networks. This is not something that is a typical requirement for most SOHO networks, so there is very little discussion on this subject across these forums.