Ekahau Site Survey Room for Improvement
RB
Richard Bradley
Senior Analyst at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
I wish the solution was better at making different survey modes, like in AirMagnet. When I use AirMagnet, I can go in and say, "I'm doing a survey on a stick," and then it will go into that "survey on a stick" mode and I can just start doing my survey. Ekahau doesn't have that. If you want to do an AP on a stick survey, each time you complete a section, you have to go in and freeze the AP manually in the software. That just seems archaic, considering AirMagnet had that problem solved ten years ago.
The worst thing about Ekahau in general is their documentation. Trying to find the answer to what you're looking for is really difficult because they constantly change their verbiage, but they don't constantly update the documents. You'll find documents using old verbiage from old versions and you're like, "No, I'm looking for this..."
View full review »We were able to recover some access points in some areas that were over-saturated. There were at least two areas where we had twice as many access points as we needed. We redesigned it and pulled some of those access points where there wasn't any proper planning done when they were initially deployed. It was before my time, but it just seemed over-saturated. Site wasn't helping. It was probably hurting, and we saved equipment that we could then deploy somewhere else.
This can be improved.
View full review »They have a new product on the way, a new Sidekick that we just ordered, that will cover basically Wi-Fi 6E, which we don't have yet but plan to get.
Hopefully, it will be in place by next year. We are buying that ahead of time, knowing that we'll be moving in that direction in the future with 6E and Wi-Fi 6.
The 6E uses a completely different spectrum, which is why we need a new Sidekick for it. I know they recently upgraded their software and are making upgrades to support it. I hate to say what they need to improve without seeing their new product, which is on the way.
The new Sidekick is going to support Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
Ekahau Site Survey
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Ekahau Site Survey. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
767,496 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Ekahau Site Survey is an expensive solution, and its pricing should be improved.
View full review »SI
SyedImran
Tech Specialist, Client Network DeliveryTech at AT&T
It would be better if it provided clear visibility. It would be better if it accommodated large physical sites like a warehouse with a ceiling height of more than twelve to fifteen feet. In such situations, we were unable to provide better coverage.
View full review »Updating the iOS and PC versions of the Ekahau Site Survey app, while the Android version lags. They should prioritize enhancing the Android app's capabilities to ensure a seamless experience for users on both Apple and Android devices. Presently, the iOS version outperforms its Android version. Their recent updates show a strong inclination towards Apple or the iOS version. The advantage is that you can start a survey inside a building without having the floor plans on hand or installed on your device. You can conduct a site survey simply by using your iPad Pro or iPhone Pro. Android devices currently lack this Li-Fi technology.
NH
reviewer1752138
Primary Wireless Project Manager at a government with 10,001+ employees
In all of our buildings, whenever we deploy wireless access points, we also have to deploy wireless intrusion detections. The Ekahau Site Survey tool doesn't allow us to differentiate between the access point and the intrusion detection device. That's because they're the same devices, but they're configured differently for the type of usage. That's one area that I would ask them to improve. They should allow the identification of access points versus wireless intrusion detection.
It is somewhat expensive to renew the licenses every year. Obviously, most places can't maintain that. You would think that if you're not using the software any differently than you were from day one, then the license that you initially purchased would be good from that point forward, but it is not like that.
View full review »FJ
Francois Jansen Van Vuuren
Solutions Architect at Altron
I'd like to see the option of an in-app photo application or a way to upload photos while carrying out an active onsite survey. You can obviously use a tablet's camera but it would be helpful to have an automated import of the physical AP in the Ekahau reports. Also, they come out with a lot of updates and it sometimes feels too much. Finally, I'd like to see a function or plugin for Ekahau to pick up on the switches the APs connect to so that you can map out further than just the APs when you do your site survey. It would be great if it could pick up a Mac address of each AP's switches, which would help engineers map out a network topology.
MG
Manuele Groppi
Senior System Engineer at alascom
The GPS feature inside Ekahau could be improved. When we have a small office, it's no problem because the planning and workflow is just enough, but in the grid field we have a 250 access point. In this case, performing a survey work through is complicated, and the GPS feature could be very useful.
When we generate the report, sometimes we have too much information and it's not explained well. We have to take time to change it or make comments because it's not clear, especially for our customers who don't have deeper knowledge.
The radial planning feature could be improved. The interference report and the spectrum analyzer could be easier to use. It would help if an estimate of the program could tell us what type of interference we have. For instance, Cisco tell us what types of interference there are.
It would be helpful if the tool could be managed by someone who doesn't have a lot of experience and doesn't need any support to do a site survey. That could increase its value in comparison with other software.
AW
Alex-Wilson
Owner at Collabsion, Inc.
I find the power button hard to access with just one hand. It really needs one hand to hold the device while the other pushes the button. It would also be improved if other mounting options besides the strap were available. Also, the strap should be easy release.
View full review »EJ
EugeneJesudason
Director of Sales at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
I wish there were a competitor to keep Ekahau Site Survey's pricing in line, but there's none.
View full review »SA
Suba Alexandru
Wireless Network Engineer at Forvia
The information regarding the clients and signal strengths is missing in the Ekahau console.
View full review »AW
Alex-Wilson
Owner at Collabsion, Inc.
The coverage patterns / strengths built into the inventory of APs in Ekahau is overly optimistic or too generous. This is not the fault of Ekahau - it is the fault of the various vendors that produce the antenna patterns they use. We tested several models of Cisco and Ubiquiti devices in open areas and found that reality versus the Ekahau predictive values were different. In reality, they did not cover as far and as strong as Ekahau’s inventory would suggest. Again - not the fault of Ekahau. This is an issue with the data being supplied to them by the various vendors.
This can lead to a bad design when using a predictive survey. Our testing was conducted on an open field with no major source of RF interference in the area.
The product is still very valuable when used by someone with enough experience in the field to know when something doesn't seem right. Someone that can make adjustments to the design based on reality.
JS
reviewer934242
Owner at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
It is a little bit more expensive than other solutions.
Our CTO was not real happy with their support.
Ekahau would benefit by making improvements to lag time. Whenever we are performing an active survey, there is a lag with the survey.
View full review »DO
reviewer2130378
Sales Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
I would say that the indoor site accuracy is pretty good but the outdoor one should be improved. I would say if there was a way to put trees in there and canopies, that would be great.
View full review »CR
Claudio Rosa
System Engineer at a mining and metals company with 10,001+ employees
Today, ESS doesn't support mixed outdoor-indoor environments. We have port and railroad environments that can't be created and exported to the WiFi management solution because ESS can´t support it.
In the ESS, we don't have an easy way to select access points and then select an external antenna for it. This is a very common situation when you are testing what could be the best solution for an environment.
Anther important point is that Ekahau Mobile doesn't have GPS support. We can't do outdoor site surveys as easily as we can in the ESS.
View full review »RB
reviewer2153028
Network Specialist at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Presently, we can only integrate the solution with Mac OS. It has been costly for us and affects the decision process too. They should provide integration with Windows as well.
View full review »FR
FelipeRamirez
Business IT Manager at PiSA
The support is an area in need of improvement.
In the next release, I would like to see a legend that shows the capacities.
View full review »PD
Pankaj Dange
Project Coordinator at Konnet Solutions
The report generation has room for improvement and is missing small details.
View full review »When a version goes out of support, sometimes the newer version isn't already available. There should be an option to import, and maybe access points can be added to the other version as well.
Most features are there, but the network adapter support should be better. Ekahau should support all laptops and versions. There's an issue with the driver too.
View full review »I wish we could have an "offline" version of Ekahau in order to give the customer some kind of interactive report where he could find all the measured values.
What I mean is that today, we can only give the customer a PDF or paper report. So they can't see detailed values as when you move the mouse over an AP. I expect to give the customer a kind of read-only file where he could explore the site survey.
View full review »- Batch reporting for large projects with many project files
SW
SunnyWang
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
I am having problems importing maps to Ekahau Site Survey. Importing is one of the first steps in using the solution and it is getting stuck. The problem could be that our maps are large with many layers.
View full review »AM
Armando Mac Beath
Project Director at Design and Intelligent Materials S de RL de CV
They should improve the iPad application because it's unstable. Also, Ekahau could be better integrated with other vendors.
View full review »CM
Christy Miller, CEO At Bcl, BI Csi Rcdd
Consultant at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
- Being able to import BIM files
One area would be to allow several files to be opened and the ability to close only one of the files.
At present, if you have several files open, you must close the entire program to close the one file. A workaround is to open a new instance of ESS, but would be nice if you do not need to do this.
When a user has two surveys done at different times (Survey1 and Survey2), and at a later time, wants to open both of them at the same time, ESS allows a user to do that. However, the software does not allow you to close one of the surveys unless you completely close out ESS.
This is not a big issue, as I mention the workaround is to open up each survey in a new instance of ESS. IOW, to ESS and open it, then select open Survey1. Then open another instance of ESS and select Survey2.
It is more of a convenience feature. For example, if you have two MS Word docs open, you can to File/Close and close one of the docs. In ESS, you cannot do that yet.
View full review »This tool needs too many of the resources (RAM) of your PC.
View full review »SM
reviewer1429029
Converged Services Project Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Sometimes there is a cancellation between two signals that the solution is not able to monitor correctly, this could improve in the future. I believe there is some kind of scattering happening preventing the solution from detecting the two signals correctly.
In a future release, I would like to see integration with wifi controllers, such as Aruba controllers.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
Ekahau Site Survey
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Ekahau Site Survey. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
767,496 professionals have used our research since 2012.