Download the latest version of inSSIDer for the best, most up-to-date software available.
Some changes you’ll notice in Version 2.1:
- Improved Filters
- Improved Interface
- Improved Network Colors
Find what you’re looking for quickly – filter by SSID, Vendor, Channel, Band, Network Type, or Security.
MetaGeek presented live at Wireless Field Day 2 Thursday January 26th, 2012 in San Jose, CA.
Click the videos below to see the latest developments of MetaGeek software, and the unveiling of our brand new visual packet analysis tool, Eye P.A.
PART ONE
Click To Watch
PART TWO
Click To Watch
Learn more about Eye P.A. at www.metageek.net/products/eye-pa
See our previous post: Get ready to accelerate your .pcap skills with Visual Packet Analysis
Right now, packet analysis works like a search engine. You enter a search term and it returns several thousand packets that meet the query. This works great when you know exactly what you’re looking for.
If you don’t – get ready to spend some time with your old friend, Mr. Scrollwheel.
For those of you who have been-there-done-that, I’d like to introduce you to Eye P.A.
Eye P.A. simplifies wireless network troubleshooting by visually aggregating the long lines of data saved in a .pcap file. It quickly displays what’s happening with your 802.11 network from a very high level while giving you the chance to drill down into the details with a helpful multi-layered animated pie chart.
For example, a BSSID may have several clients represented as the green inner layers.
These will be colored in different shades of green to represent the data rate of the conversation.
The Frame Types (outer layers) will be colored based on the type of frame: Data, Control or Management.
We’ve made the pie charts actionable, that means you can drill down by clicking on the pie chart itself. While the interactive pie charts are pretty flippin’ sweet (as we say here in Idaho), this is just a mere piece of our eyeball packet analyzer.
We want to invite you to watch the live-stream unveiling of our new wireless packet visualization tool at Wireless Tech Field Day on January 26th.
Sign up below to get a reminder email with the link for
the presentation and see our packet visualization tool!
We promise to send you exclusive MetaGeek goodness
and not any of that spammy stuff.
Have you ever opened a packet capture file in WireShark? The .pcap (short for Packet Capture) is the most ubiquitous file format for logging network traffic and can be used by almost any network analysis tool. It also displays huge amounts of data that you have to scroll through to find problems with your network.
Packet capture analysis is an essential piece of successful wireless networking. If you haven’t drilled down to the packet level to find a rogue AP, identify the top talkers, count retransmits or understand the % of network bandwidth traveling between bytes, packets or time – you’ll find that there are a lot of ways to export wireless data into a handy .pcap file. You can export from a Mac running OS X Lion. Or from a Linux system, you can use WireShark, TCPDump, Kismet, Aircrack-NG and many more. And for Windows, use Riverbed’s AirPcap Nx with WireShark or Cascade Pilot. However, all these tools leave something to be desired when it comes to analyzing the data.
Many networking hardware vendors have implemented the ability to download a packet capture file from their devices to provide deep frame analysis. Companies like Cisco, Aruba, Meru, Ruckus, Aerohive, and Xirrus know how important it is for people to understand what is happening with their wireless network. However, it’s still very hard to figure out what all the information is telling you in a .pcap file.
Another layer of complication within packet analysis is that within five minutes you could capture over 400,000 packets – all wirelessly. To find the source of a problem using the most readily available tool, WireShark, you need to have a deep understanding of filters and stellar scrolling skills for all the work you’ll be doing with your mouse … the lines of data are long and extensive.
this is what a .pcap file looks like in WireShark
Well, scroll no more. MetaGeek is bringing its innovative visualization expertise to packet analysis! We want to invite you to watch the live-stream unveiling of our new wireless packet visualization tool at Wireless Tech Field Day on January 26th.
Sign up below to get a reminder email with the link for
the presentation and see our packet visualization tool!
When Wi-Fi was invented and subsequently adopted en-masse, it brought a wave of mobile computing (think laptops). Corporations, universities, hospitals, and everyone else started putting in APs like crazy. Wi-Fi use exploded in the residential space too. Then, Wi-Fi chipsets started showing up in smartphones, iPods, digital cameras and a multitude of other gadgets. This has magnified the usefulness of WLANs and got all of of us *seriously* addicted to Wi-Fi. In fact, it’s hard to remember what we did before we had this ubiquitous wireless connection.
Now, with the quickly emerging concept of “The Internet of Things“, we are likely to see another big leap forward in Wi-Fi usage – connecting “things” (such as HVAC systems and refrigerators) to 802.11. It does sound a lot like Star Trek, but it’s coming, and will be much cheaper and therefore much more pervasive than we think, IMHO.
So, what does this mean to you?
First, it means that your WLAN will need to be super-robust. Correct coverage, configuration, etc. will be essential to make everything work well together.
Secondly, 802.11 won’t be the only technology used to connect devices together. ZigBee, Z-Wave and other future wireless protocols will compete for the same swaths of spectrum allocated in the unlicensed wireless bands. Spectrum management will become even more imperative to keep your WLAN interference-free and running well amongst the multitude of carrier signals transmitting through your airspace. If there was a time to become a Layer 1 pro, this is it!
Check out MetaGeek’s PHY layer tools at www.metageek.com and get up to speed. MetaGeek makes affordable wireless tools that help you make your current and future “Internet of Things” work as well as possible, and we have a great list of useful free tools. What you might not know is that we also have in-depth resources in the forms of guides, videos and how-to’s on our support pages, and we’re always adding more – so check back often.
Don’t say we didn’t give you a heads-up 
.
Early Days at MetaGeek - our first office at TECenter
February 2010: MetaGeek moved into a new office, twice the size of our previous space. We had a large conference room for staff meetings, a small conference room for calls, a big reception area, and plenty of space for our employees. Plus, it had an extra garage/warehouse section that added an additional 1500 sq ft. We figured we’d be able to stay put for at least three years.
As the days passed, we had to move the large conference room from inside the office into the garage space, along with shipping and inventory, in order to make room for more employees.
April 2011: We quickly realized we were growing out of our “new” big office when we had filled the entire office with desks (and some even in hallways) and decided it was time to start looking for another space.
The Geeks are avid readers of Joel On Software, so our quest for a new office was heavily inspired by Fog Creek Software’s amazing office (more pictures) and we had high hopes.
As we set out to find our new home, most of the spaces we looked at were designed to be cubicle farms or were chopped up into tiny offices with no exterior light into half the space, which was no good.
Our goals for the new office were:
Plenty of space for growth over the next couple years
Close to Boise State University (easy commute for interns)
Natural lighting
Open, flexible floorplan
Large kitchen and lunch area
Easy shipping access for FedEx
August 2011: After many months of searching, we finally found a great third-floor location in a historical downtown Boise building with a landlord willing to do major tenant improvements for us – allowing us to create an office that met all of our goals!
Our office was originally two separate suites, which we combined into a single office. We also tore out some of the small offices around the exterior in order to open up the interior more. We added more interior windows to let light flow through the private offices into the hallways.
My fabulous wife Holli expertly coordinated all of the interior design including carpet, paint, blinds and furniture. Outfitting the office required many trips to all of the “close” Ikea stores in Portland, Seattle, and Salt Lake. The end result is a beautiful space that feels modern yet approachable. Thank you Holli!
We decided the new office also needed new desks custom-built for pair programming (more on this coming soon). In our old office, the software team worked in a space we called the “Code Cave” – but with all of the awesome natural light in the new office we couldn’t call it a cave anymore – so now we have a Code Kitchen 
We added power and network drops from the ceiling so that the desks can be easily rearranged as teams morph for different projects.
Flanking the Code Kitchen are scrum rooms; each team has their own space so that the whiteboards can be left for as long as necessary without the worry of someone else accidentally erasing a design in mid-sprint.
The Food & Leisure area is large enough for the entire company to eat lunch at the same time – perfect for brown bag lunches and events. The cupboards and fridge are kept stocked with snacks and lunch food. Tucked in the corner is our bike rack, which we’ve already outgrown! During August and September, the bike rack regularly filled up with a couple bikes crammed in along the opposite wall (our bike commuter team).
In the northeast corner of our office is our Library! (the exclamation mark on Library! is a Boise thing…) with the most amazing view of the Idaho State Capital and the Boise Foothills. My mom tried to convince me to turn this room into my private office, but the view is too amazing to keep for myself
In the middle of the office is the reception area and our Product Roadmap. Behind the reception area is the Shipping Room. We added an extra door to improve access for our daily FedEx shipment. Our conference room has a glass ceiling with lots of natural light. The south end of our office has a hallway lined with offices on either side where the business folks live along with the Interference Lab.
August 29th 2011: All moved in! The MetaGeek office may not exactly like Apple’s forthcoming spaceship headquarters, but for a small startup in Boise, it’s pretty awesome!
Watch our recommendations for surviving the zombie apocalypse.
As part of the second annual Boise Bot Competition, the Idaho-based Discovery Center also hosted a Tech Fest which offers local companies an opportunity to talk about problems they are solving with technology and more importantly – how it works. Being the geeks we are, we jumped at the opportunity to participate. Saturday morning Chris, one of our software hackers, and I headed off to join in the fun.
Kids Battling Their Bots
The MetaGeek demonstration table was right inside the entrance to the Discovery Center. We had Chanalyzer running on a variety of different devices, including a MacBook Pro, Windows virtual machine,
a Windows 8 tablet PC, an Android tablet, and an iPad. We were monitoring and displaying the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, 868MHz, 900MHz, and 950MHz spectrums using Wi-Spy 2.4x, DBx, 900x and 950x. We were also monitoring the 2.4GHz spectrum at my house remotely using a prototype of our remote Wi-Spy.
Brian Tuttle, Geek Herder at MetaGeek, manning the table at Boise Bot Comp's Tech Fest
Over the course of the day, about 450 people came down to the Bot Competition. Most of the attendees weren’t familiar with spectrum analysis and were very curious about what Chanalyzer was showing them. When we explained that Wi-Spy and Chanalyzer allowed them to see the invisible wireless communications and interference going on around them, they were amazed.
Most of the attendees weren’t familiar with how Wi-Fi works, so we did a good bit of educating. The 2.4GHz band at the Discovery Center was pretty crowded. There were 3 public and 1 private wireless access points, as well as 3 dedicated access points used to control the FIRST Robotics Bullbots, built by local high school students. As a result, we were able to give some compelling demonstrations of adjacent channel interference. By juxtaposing the displays for the empty 5GHz band and the congested 2.4GHz band, we were able to provide a great visual explanation for why the industry is moving toward 802.11a/n.
We also brought a fixed-frequency wireless video camera with us so that we could do more interactive interference demonstrations. This lead to one of the most exciting parts of the day for me. We were finishing up an interference demonstration and turned off the video camera. To our surprise, a strong fixed frequency signal continued to transmit, on the same frequency our camera had been using. After we verified that the camera was indeed completely powered off, we decided to track down the source of this new interferer.
We fired up Chanalyzer Pro on the Windows 8 tablet, and hooked up a Wi-Spy DBx with the Device Finder 2.4GHz directional antenna. We zoomed into the mystery signal, and then launched the Device finder in Chanalyzer Pro. I wandered around the Tech Fest, and the device finder indicated that the signal was coming from the entry foyer. As I walked that direction, I was expecting that maybe the signal was coming from the reception desk in the foyer. To my surprise, the signal continued to grow stronger as I passed the desk and approached the outside doors. As I exited the building, the source of the signal became pretty obvious. The Boise Police Department were demonstrating their Bomb Robot in the parking lot. Sure enough, as I approach the robot, the signal became very strong! Apparently, the bomb robot uses 2.4GHz for its video feed back to the operator.
Chanalyzer Pro showing significant disturbance (in Red) from Boise Bomb Bot
I was pleased that Device Finder had worked so effectively to track down the source of the interference, but I was even more impressed with using Chanalyzer Pro on the Windows 8 tablet. The tablet form factor is great for using Device Finder, and the using a touchscreen to interact with Chanalyzer for zooming in to a frequency, starting the device finder feature and adjusting the timeframe was very natural. I’m very excited about the things we’ll be able to do with Chanalyzer and Wi-Spy on touch-based devices.
Chris and I had a great time geeking out at the Boise Bot Competition and talking to people about spectrum analysis and Wi-Fi. We thank the Boise Bot Competition for inviting us and the Discovery Center for hosting.
We live in a world where everything is going wireless. Having a solid, interference-free WLAN is essential for happy co-existence. This is especially true in the automation and A/V world, where the newest, coolest wireless gear is only as good as the network it runs on.
Year after year, a few of our friends in automation and A/V encouraged us to exhibit at CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association). We decided to take their advice to get a booth at the 2011 Expo – and had a great experience!
We found that CEDIA attendees were very intrigued by our intuitive, affordable and highly portable wireless networking tools, Wi-Spy and Chanalyzer.
The MetaGeek booth was immediately recognized as the “inSSIDer“s. We’ve definitely noticed how popular our open-source Wi-Fi scanner is, and it was cool to talk face-to-face with so many people that rely on it day-in and day-out. Also, discovering the number of people that consistently use Wi-Spy and Chanalyzer in their wireless control and automation installs was impressive as well.
Speaking of Wi-Spy and RF interference – we were able to clearly illustrate how many different kinds of wireless technologies can be used in the same frequency ranges as 802.11 Wi-Fi networks. ZigBee, Z-Wave, and other proprietary wireless audio streams were very prevalent on the show floor, and MetaGeek was able to illustrate that with our visualization software, Chanalyzer.
What’s really remarkable is that often installers deploy three or four different wireless systems for things such as audio speakers, lighting controls or security systems in the same swath of spectrum in the *same* house or building. It’s not hard to see why our tools are relied on so much in this space – without visibility into what’s happening in the 2.4, 5 GHz and 900 MHz bands, how would you know which channels to deploy on to avoid interference and make everything all work together? Couple that with the ability to quickly educate home owners about how their new or existing equipment impacts their installation-wide wireless communications – a MetaGeek solution is very attractive. Even those few that didn’t know about inSSIDer walked away excited about what the tools could do for them, and at such affordable price points.
We also walked the expo floor and did a quick capture with Ekahau Site Survey. As with most tradeshows, we found a huge number of Wi-Fi access points (524 in total!). Since the hall was wide-open with very few walls, receiving good signal strength from many of these APs was quite easy, even if it was far away. (See ESS heatmap below)
However, actually staying connected to an AP and getting any kind of throughput was a different story. Since the floor area was so dense with 2.4 GHz noise from the 500+ Wi-Fi APs, ZigBee nodes, and everything else that was transmitting, it was almost impossible to get on a WLAN and use it.
We grabbed many Chanalyzer recordings while we were there to document the overwhelming wireless landscape to share with others. Check out the screen shot below.. is it any surprise that Wi-Fi usage is knocked out for everybody?
Thanks to MetaGeek friend and CEDIA volunteer, Shawn Lemay, we were able to be a part of the CEDIA University Learning Labs. Our resident training geek, Trent Cutler, was invited to conduct the spectrum analysis section of their WLAN course, earning a great response from the attendees. We appreciated this opportunity to share our experience with wireless troubleshooting, and how to use spectrum analyzers to diagnose interference issues.
We thoroughly enjoyed meeting and getting feedback from so many of the attendees in Wireless Automation and A/V Installation. We’ll be seeing you at CEDIA Expo 2012 for sure!
Unleash the powers of your Wi-Spy and view smaller frequency ranges with excellent resolution in the latest version of Chanalyzer Lab. Chanalyzer Lab can transform a Wi-Spy to a lab-worthy spectrum analyzer that will impress your most RF-savvy friend. He or she can save her favorite hardware presets with the ultimate step size and resolution bandwidth combination for quick and easy access. Chanalyzer Lab gives the consistency many engineers need and deserve.
What’s New?
As a 20% project here at MetaGeek, Chris created a quick and easy tool to export the data window to a CSV file. If you have ever wanted to extract the raw values out of Chanalyzer, Lab now has the feature built in. Use Chanalyzer’s time segment analysis to find the perfect range of time you’d like to export it. After a few clicks you will have actionable data to import into other tools such as MATLAB or another external diagnostic program.
Chanalyzer also includes the latest color scheme by MetaGeek called Color by Utilization. This is very useful for visualizing how constant a transmitter can be. Don’t worry though, like everything else in lab you can quickly change the colors to what ever makes sense for you.
If you find yourself wanting higher resolution, faster sweep times or perhaps exportable data – give Chanalyzer Lab a free trial. For Science!
