Blog
Validating Wi-Fi Deployments with Custom Checklists
Most professional Wi-Fi deployments are built against some kind of standard, whether that's a formal company policy, a client's security requirements, or simply the set of best practices you've [...]
Choosing the Best Mac for Wi-Fi Analysis
Choosing a Mac for Wi-Fi analysis isn’t as simple as comparing processors or memory configurations. When running WiFi Explorer and other professional Wi-Fi tools, the Mac’s wireless hardware and [...]
WiFi Explorer and WPA3-Personal Compatibility Mode
As WPA3 adoption continues, one challenge keeps emerging in real deployments: not all clients behave the same way. Some fully support WPA3, some partially support it, and others don’t support [...]
Balancing Security and Compatibility with RSN Override
While implementing support for RSN Override in WiFi Explorer, we took a closer look at how this mechanism works and why it was introduced. If you're dealing with interoperability [...]
The Return of Ping Analyzer
I’m excited to reintroduce Ping Analyzer, a completely rewritten version of the app I first released nearly 15 years ago. The original version gained a small but loyal following [...]
Using Airtool Pi with the Oscium Nomad to Capture Wi-Fi Traffic
The Oscium Nomad is now fully supported in Airtool Pi, enabling powerful, multi-channel Wi-Fi packet captures directly from your iPhone or iPad. This integration is possible through a collaboration [...]
Multi-Channel Captures Using Airtool Pi
Airtool Pi allows you to effortlessly capture Wi-Fi frames from your iPhone or iPad using Linux-based remote sensors such as the WLAN Pi. It seamlessly connects to the sensor over [...]
Using Your Android Device as a Remote Sensor
The remote sensor feature in WiFi Explorer Pro 3 and WiFi Explorer Pro for Windows allows you to scan for wireless networks using a Linux- or Android-based device while [...]
Goodbye, airport!
It finally happened. Apple has officially retired the airport command-line utility on macOS Sonoma 14.4. Although it was considered deprecated, the airport command was still very helpful for quickly [...]
Introducing WiFi Explorer Pro for Windows
For many years, WiFi Explorer has been Mac's leading Wi-Fi scanner and analyzer and the preferred choice for many WLAN professionals and enthusiasts. After announcing our desire to offer [...]
Yet Another Wi-Fi Details Shortcut for iOS
Apple recently launched iOS 17 with new options to retrieve details about your Wi-Fi connection using Shortcuts. When adding the "Get Network Details" action to a shortcut, you can [...]
WiFi Explorer Lite Now Available on the Windows Store
WiFi Explorer's been Mac's leading Wi-Fi scanner and analyzer for many years and the preferred choice for many WLAN professionals. Last October, we announced our desire to make WiFi [...]
Making Your WLAN Pi R4 Fully Portable
This post is a follow-up to our previous blog, which discussed the parts and steps to build a WLAN Pi R4 that you can use as a Wi-Fi 6E [...]
Building Your Own Remote Sensor with 6 GHz Support
Even though Macs don't support Wi-Fi 6E, WiFi Explorer Pro 3 and Airtool 2 offer visibility into the 6 GHz band when using remote sensors that can scan or capture traffic [...]
WLPC México 2022
See below for the English version. Un éxito total. Así podemos resumir la Conferencia para Profesionales en Redes Inalámbricas (WLPC por sus siglas en inglés) realizada el pasado 5 [...]
Meet Airtool 2’s Little Brother: Airtool Pi
Airtool Pi allows you to perform remote Wi-Fi packet captures from your iPhone or iPad using Linux-based sensors. Airtool Pi is Airtool 2's little brother. Both Airtool Pi and [...]
Happy 10th Anniversary, WiFi Explorer!
Today is the 10th Anniversary of WiFi Explorer! I released the first version of WiFi Explorer on the Mac App Store ten years ago, on January 17, 2012. I came [...]
The Multiple BSSID Element: Improving Airtime Efficiency
An access point (AP) can create two or more networks on the same Wi-Fi radio. This capability, known as Virtual AP (VAP), makes one physical AP appear to be several [...]
Using Coloring Rules in WiFi Explorer Pro 3
We recently revamped filtering in WiFi Explorer Pro 3 and added a new feature that we believe is very helpful: Coloring rules (WiFi Explorer Pro 3 > Preferences > [...]
A New Filters Cheat Sheet for WiFi Explorer and WiFi Explorer Pro 3
Starting in version 3.3 of WiFi Explorer and WiFi Explorer Pro 3, we've added new filtering capabilities, including the ability to filter by network attributes and information element fields. [...]
Customizing WiFi Signal’s Menu Bar Status Display
WiFi Signal is a menu bar app that lets you monitor your Wi-Fi network’s status and signal quality. When you click the WiFi Signal's menu bar icon, a popup [...]
Capturing Wi-Fi Packets on Your Mac Using External Adapters
If you don't have a remote sensor, you can still do packet captures on one or more channels using external USB Wi-Fi adapters. However, because we can't use external adapters natively as we do with the Mac's built-in Wi-Fi adapter, we need EASE (External Adapter Support Environment).
Capturing Packet Traces from Your iOS Device
You can capture packet traces from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using Airtool 2. A packet trace capture from an iOS device records traffic at the network layer [...]
Using a Raspberry Pi 4 as a Remote Sensor for WiFi Explorer Pro and Airtool
This blog post will show you how to configure a Raspberry Pi 4 with an external Wi-Fi adapter to be used as a remote sensor in WiFi Explorer Pro and Airtool. We will assume you have a fresh installed Raspberry Pi 4 using Raspberry Pi OS.
What’s Going On, Apple? – Part 2
For years, packet capturing in the Mac using the built-in Wi-Fi adapter has always worked reliably out of the box, and it is one of the main reasons many Wi-Fi professionals love their Macs to do their jobs. Unfortunately, packet capturing is now broken in the new M1 Mac.
Multi-Channel Captures in Airtool 2
Airtool 2 makes it possible to perform affordable, multi-channel captures using multiple remote sensors and Wi-Fi adapters. As each source (a sensor/interface combination) sends captured packets back, Airtool 2 automatically merges them to generate a single capture file or an aggregated live capture in Wireshark.
Column Profiles in WiFi Explorer Pro 3
One of the useful features you can find in WiFi Explorer Pro 3 is custom column profiles. You can use profiles to define and display different sets of columns for [...]
The New WiFi Explorer Pro 3
We are excited to announce WiFi Explorer Pro 3. We worked hard behind the scenes to bring the app up to date with the latest enhancements in macOS Big [...]
Using the WLAN Pi to Scan for Networks in WiFi Explorer Pro
The WLAN Pi is a device designed for assessing, testing, and troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks. It's a small computer based on the NanoPi Neo2 board that is pre-loaded with a [...]
Transfer: Simple and Reliable TFTP Server for macOS
Transfer is a reliable and straightforward TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) server application for macOS. TFTP is a high-level protocol to read and write files from or to a remote [...]
What’s Going On, Apple?
One of the many reasons we enjoy developing for Mac is that during all these years, we've encountered very few bugs in macOS. In other words, from a system [...]
Filtering Scan Results in WiFi Explorer
One of the things I didn't spend too much time with at the beginning of the development of WiFi Explorer was filtering. As the tool matured, it was more [...]
Using External USB Wi-Fi Adapters with WiFi Explorer Pro
For many years we've been asked to provide support for external USB Wi-Fi adapters in WiFi Explorer. Many of these adapters are either not compatible with macOS or require [...]
A Practical Introduction to Dynamic Frequency Selection
Have you ever wondered why certain channels in the 5 GHz band, more specifically in the 5.25-5.35 GHz (UNII-2) and 5.47-5.725 GHz (UNII-2e) frequency bands are (almost) never in [...]
Importing Scan Results from AirPort Utility into WiFi Explorer Pro
Apple’s AirPort Utility for iOS includes a Wi-Fi scanner you can use to scan for nearby networks from your iPhone or iPad. Scan results are presented as a list [...]
Post Processing Captures in Airtool with Python
For the past WLAN Professionals Conference in Phoenix, AZ (February 21-23, 2017), I collaborated with Brian Long for the development of a feature in Airtool to allow users to [...]
Honey, I Shrunk the Beacon Interval!
A beacon is an 802.11 management frame that describes a Wi-Fi network and its capabilities. Access points transmit beacons to announce the network to nearby clients and support functions [...]
Understanding the Scan Modes in WiFi Explorer Pro
Wi-Fi scanning is the process by which a client device or application discovers wireless networks within range of a Wi-Fi adapter. During a scan, the device gathers information about [...]
Automatic Data Frame Slicing in Airtool
Troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks at the protocol level requires analyzing control, management, and data frames. When saving these frames to disk, capture files can grow quickly because data frames may [...]
Using WiFi Explorer’s Annotations in WiFi Signal
WiFi Signal integrates with WiFi Explorer to import and display access point annotations automatically. In WiFi Explorer, annotations assign custom labels to individual access points. You can use them [...]
WiFi Signal 4.0 Demystified
WiFi Signal 4.0 introduces several features for monitoring and troubleshooting Wi-Fi connections, including new tools for tracking association and roaming behavior. The release also includes interface improvements, dark mode [...]
Conversion of Signal Strength in dBm to Percentage in WiFi Explorer
WiFi Explorer, as well as other wireless scanning tools, provides an option to display signal strength in dBm or percentage values. The purpose of this blog is to describe [...]
Six Things You Probably Didn’t Know You Could Do in WiFi Explorer
The design of WiFi Explorer aims to make it easy for non-technical users to troubleshoot home or a small office wireless networks, but also to provide IT and WLAN [...]
Link-Layer Header Types: What Do I Need to Know?
Airtool is a menu bar app for macOS that makes it easy to capture 802.11 frames on one or more channels. One of its options lets you select the [...]
There’s Nothing Hidden About Hidden Networks
Users occasionally ask why WiFi Explorer does not detect “hidden” networks. WiFi Explorer relies on Apple’s CoreWLAN framework for scanning, and CoreWLAN does not return useful information about a [...]
Troubleshooting Wireless Networks with WiFi Explorer
Wireless networks are everywhere, and we use them every day. However, many factors influence their performance, and getting the most from them is not always easy. In this article, [...]