We performed a comparison between AirCheck G3 and DX Spectrum based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Network Troubleshooting solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The auto-test, channel scanner, packet capture, and Link-Live integration are all crucial features we use regularly. The wired cable tester is also indispensable. We frequently run into problems during cable testing that are hard to pin down. When tracking down a cable problem, you usually need to plug something into the cable and ensure the cable plant is reliable."
"AirCheck made a lot of children and caregivers quite happy. While I might not have resolved everything, I have reduced the problems that we had every night. During the day, they would do visible checks and not always rely on the monitors, but every night, they had at least three or four of those alarms. I was able to reduce it to once or twice a week since those appliances are still limited in their wireless capability."
"It has made our networking staff more productive. We spend less time because the device helps us by identifying the issue and providing a solution for the customer. Prior to not having this device, we would have to guess when an issue arose. Now, we don't have to guess. This can easily save us hours per call."
"AirCheck G2 gives me an overview of which channels are used by the access points or who delivers the Wi-Fi, which gives me a clear picture of what's going on."
"The airCheck is the real-time spectrum analyzer to see clients that could be connecting to our network, not just rogue networks out there, but rogue clients and other interference in that particular spectrum."
"I also like the remote session and the ability to log in to the device remotely. You can log in to the tester with your computer and can see the screen and operate the tester remotely. This is a very cool function, but it's very advanced."
"The ability to push data to Link-Live is really important. On the main screen, you can see all the system parameters, and then you can also go and see all the current systems that are operating. They all have different SSIDs or system identifiers, and you can see all SSIDs that are operating in a certain area. Being able to see that and being able to dive into each one and figure out what frequency it is operating under is valuable."
"I like the cloud functionality. That's very useful because somebody can go onsite, someone who is not really skilled, and I can see the test results from the office."
"Scalable and stable network monitoring tool with a simple setup."
"The most valuable features have been the interface and the ability to do equipment management."
"We can plan changes and replacement of end-of-life products in our environment very well because it's very accurate."
"Spectrum is very useful for us, because the product lets us monitor and control all the various components of our infrastructure that support our business from an IT perspective."
"The main thing is obviously notifications about alerts, getting ahead of the curve to make sure that we do not have system going down, or if it is down we get to know it earlier."
"All networks (or network equipment) are monitored through CA Spectrum."
"The fault management is perfect."
"What I like best is the configuration management functionality."
"It was hard to determine which AP was which because it only shows the MAC address. It'll also display the MAC address of the BSSID, so it looked like I had 12 APs in my house. If I have three access points and each is a dual-band with an SSID or BSSID for each radio, it comes out to about 12 APs. That's one of the bugs fixed in the latest firmware update, but it's only available if you have a NetAlly support contract."
"The battery life needs improvement. For example, when you are doing an Ethernet test, that seems to drain the battery pretty quickly."
"The solution doesn't have much functional information online."
"NetAlly has been behind the curve on visualization, Wi-Fi design, and heat maps for a little while now. They're perfectly aware of this deficiency, but what they offer is good enough for a lot of people. It's not suitable for larger shops, but it works in a pinch. The AirMapper and subsequent AirMagnet integration is an afterthought."
"A feature I would like to see is the ability to charge the device via a PoE outlet. Usually, I need to charge it at home. It would be good to leave the device plugged in and charging at a PoE source at the customer site after a quick look at the network when I have moved on to other tasks."
"If it was capable of downloading MIBs onto the device, then we could identify the manufacturer. Sometimes, when I am troubleshooting, there is a Mac address. For example, there is a rogue device and it just gives us a Mac address, which is fine. It gives us something, which is better than nothing. It would be nice if it was able to download a MIB where we could associate it with that Mac address and the manufacturer."
"The only thing that would be an improvement would be the ability to do MPO/MPT testing, which is another mode of fiber, along with more options on the SFP to do that testing."
"It would be nice if I could import an AP list with a MAC address. When it looks at access points, it should tell me the AP name instead of the MAC address. When you get a MAC address, you could eventually find out where you want to go. However, a lot of times, if I just have an AP name, I know that's in this area or that's over there. I would like that function because AirMagnet, which is the precursor of this, had that ability where you could basically import a list of APs and MAC addresses, and then it could display those instead of just a MAC address."
"I would suggest improving the web GUI to improve the device monitor configuration and to improve or to integrate the new tool for reporting."
"DX Spectrum could be improved by them getting rid of the Java console. It would also be better with Turkish language support."
"From the users perspective the looks and feel of dashboards of Spectrum would be easier to use and for understanding as APM will be in 10.5 version which we saw in CA World."
"The biggest issue is our integration right now between UIM and Spectrum is lacking."
"For my use case, incident coordination was an area of improvement. The internal software engine for coordinating outages could use improvement because sometimes, we used to get false alerts for unrelated devices. They did a really good job of trying to make sure that you got one major alert and any of the subsequent devices downstream were just additions to that, but occasionally, the engine wouldn't properly catch the right things, and we used to get a flood of alerts."
"The visual is a little archaic."
"Technical support for this product is not so good. It needs improvement."
"It was somewhat complex to implement."
AirCheck G3 is ranked 5th in Network Troubleshooting with 13 reviews while DX Spectrum is ranked 6th in Network Troubleshooting with 115 reviews. AirCheck G3 is rated 8.6, while DX Spectrum is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of AirCheck G3 writes "A portable, rugged device that reduces resolution time and saves thousands of dollars". On the other hand, the top reviewer of DX Spectrum writes "Comprehensive alerts, beneficial overall network viability, and scalability not limited". AirCheck G3 is most compared with LinkRunner, AirMagnet Survey, iTrinegy NE-ONE Network Emulator and NetAlly EtherScope nXG, whereas DX Spectrum is most compared with DX NetOps, Zabbix, SolarWinds NPM, Cisco DNA Center and ThousandEyes. See our AirCheck G3 vs. DX Spectrum report.
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