Use WiFi Analyzer for Android to optimally configure your wireless router
Setting up a wireless router is not really that difficult anymore if you stick with the default settings. While that works fine often, it is better to go through the configuration manually to improve the security and performance of your wireless connection.
Besides making sure that you are running the most secure protocol available, you may also want to make sure that your router is placed and configured optimally for reception.
One of the things that you can do to ensure that is to make sure that you are using one of the free channels and not one that all of your neighbors are making use of.
If you own an Android phone or tablet, you can use it in conjunction with the WiFi Analyzer application to find the best spot and configuration for your router.
WiFi Analyzer Review
Just start the application after you have installed it to start using it. It will display the channel graph by default which is useful for two purposes.
- It highlights the channels that wireless networks that the phone picked up are using. If you notice that your wireless network is sharing channels with another one, you may want to move it to a free channel instead if that is possible. Basically, the less sharing the better.
- You also see the signal strength of each router here. The higher it goes, the better. It is obviously best if your own router has the highest value when you are near it.
You may want to walk around into all rooms or even outside to get a feel for the reach of your router's signal strength. Note though that this does not necessarily reflect how well others can connect to it or attack it, as the device that is used for that also plays a role here.
You can switch to other graphs and information with a tap on the eye icon on top. Available here are time graph, channel rating, ap list and signal meter.
- Time graph: Displays each router's signal strength over time. Just keep the app running for some time to check it out and make sure that your router's signal strength does not drop below a certain threshold or disappears completely off the grid.
- Channel rating: This one is interesting as it provides you with ratings for each channel. Even better, you can select a router and the application will tell you which channels are - probably - best suited for it. Just switch to another channel and see if it resolves any connection or performance issues that you may have.
- AP List: Displays all access points, the channels they use, their signal strength and names.
- Signal Meter: Test the strength of any wireless network that you select.
You may also want to check the preferences of WiFi Analyzer to modify some settings like the scan interval, change the available channels in your region, or set it to automatically enable and disable WiFi when needed.
Verdict
I have used WiFi Analyzer several times in the past to find the best possible channel configuration for wireless routers. It is ideal for that purposes, and even if you are not familiar with the technicalities, you can still use it effectively by trusting the apps channel ratings.
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Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?