Is there a way to get WiFi NOISE levels for a mobile device?

Is there a way to get WiFi NOISE levels for a mobile device?

My daughter is traveling in Europe with a friend, where my daughter has the Nexus 5 while her friend has one of the newer iPhones (I don't know which one). Both have iPads also, but neither iPad (AFAIK) is picking up cellular. Both traveled with a single carryon, so, they have no PCs.

The grandparents are on dialup (they're in their 80's) but my brother in law lives next door, through thick walls, where my daughter is reading -90dBM signal strength on InSSIDer freeware (installed before InSSIDer started costing $10) for the brother-in-laws access point.

They can't connect to WiFi, and it's driving them (typical American kids) crazy. What I would like to know is the headroom over the SNR (signal to noise ratio) so I need to have them measure the noise level (at either 2.4GHz or 5GHz).

Do you know an app that provides the SNR or the noise level?

They're currently "surviving" on the fact that my daughter is on T-Mobile so the personal hotspot feature allows her (unlimited but slow 3G at best) cellular data to be shared with the AT&T iPhone and to both iPads.

My daughter called the free T-Mobile international phone number 611-equivalent (+1-505-998-3793) and they had her turn on roaming, which gave her 3G (at best) cellular data (where the T-Mobile plan is unlimited data when in Europe, but only something like 2.5GB/month in the USA).

I know less about the AT&T iPhone but the friend seems to have only an 800MB/month plan but she can't connect for cellular data for some reason, so she's glomming off my daughter's signal for the moment (until we sort this out).

I don't know the situation with the AT&T iPad, but the T-Mobile iPad only has the free 200Mb/month for life SIM card, which doesn't work in Europe, so it's a "dumb" iPad with respect to cellular data (it should work fine on WiFi though).

Since the T-Mobile Android cellular data is slow (3G at best according to T-Mobile) and has to be shared with the AT&T iPhone, I really want both of them on the next-door brother-in-law's home broadband router WiFi.

Jeff Liebermann kindly suggested the freeware WiFi Analyzer, which is as good as InSSIDer so, we have both installed now, and that tells us the signal strength in decibels (my daughter is getting -90dBm but can't connect to the WiFi access point for some reason).

The reason they can't connect is almost certainly that the signal to noise ratio doesn't give them the 10 to

12 decibels they need of headroom.

But, that brings up this question because I have no idea what the noise level is at their location.

Is there a way to get WiFi NOISE levels for any of these three types of mobile devices?

Reply to
Paul B. Andersen
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Ummmm... WiFi-SNR perhaps? That catch is that you have to be connected to the remote access point in order to generate a graph. Also, dive into "Setting" and check the "Display results in text" box. I'm sitting about 3 ft from my AP and it shows an average of about 40dB SNR.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

I use wifi analyzer on Android. I think Apple restrict access to that information in iOS so I think most apps are limited on that platform unless they're jailbroken.

Reply to
chris

Thanks for that idea, as I had not found that app in my search. Here is a screenshot run from home just now of the results:

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Compare that with InSSIDER results and I like WiFiSNR *much better*!

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So WiFi_SNR is an instant keeper!

I had previously only found (and installed) the following freeware

  1. WiFi Analyser
  2. WiGLE WiFi
  3. Fritz!App WLAN
  4. Fing all of which do very nice things, with lots of bells and whistles, but none seemed to report the SNR or noise level in decibels.

Loading WiFi-SNR on my Android phone, it immediately tells me that the signal strength should be between 0 & -60dBm for a good WiFi connection.

The help is great, as it then tells me that I need a SNR of at least 10 to get decent WiFi speeds, and then it explains the WiFi Link speed, which is automatically adjusted by the ROUTER (not the phone!) depending on the SNR (so the router apparently knows the SNR all the time). Interesting.

Then it displays real time graphs, at 1-second intervals, for:

  1. Signal to Noise Ratio (I had to turn on text output to *see* it)
  2. Link Speed
  3. Signal Strength

In my results at home (testing it before I tell my kid to use it):

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Turning on the nice *text* output...

  1. My SNR averaged -69dB
  2. My Link Speed to the home broadband router averaged 41Mbps
  3. My Signal Strength from the home broadband router averaged -68dBm

I think it's interesting that my signal strength is about the same as my SNR, but they're two different things, so, what it means is that I have a decent signal strength of -68dBm and way more than the necessary ratio of 10 for the signal-to-noise ratio.

Now to talk the kid through all this (they're 9 hours ahead of me though).

Reply to
Paul B. Andersen

On Android, I had previously already installed this freeware:

  1. WiFi Analyser
  2. WiGLE WiFi
  3. Fritz!App WLAN
  4. Fing
  5. InSSIDer (no longer freeware) all of which do very nice things, with lots of bells and whistles, but none seemed to report the SNR or noise level in decibels.

Your suggestion of WiFi Analyzer is pretty good as it has 5 pages:

  1. A real nice hand-held beeping signal strength analog meter!
  2. Signal strength graphs for 2.4GHz
  3. Running timelines of signal strength graphs
  4. Signal strength bars, with security, SSID, BSSID, channel, router, etc.
  5. Some kind of channel quality histogram

A picture of each, for those who don't have it, is below, from a test at home just now on my phone:

  1. formatting link
  2. formatting link
  3. formatting link
  4. formatting link
  5. formatting link

These tools are so useful, especially when debugging a problem from afar, that I don't know how I lived without them in the past!

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will no longer be ignorant of what is actually going on, and, I'll be better equipped to troubleshoot given the necessary technical data.

Thanks!

Reply to
Paul B. Andersen

Crashes every time you enter settings on a Galaxy Tab 2

Reply to
Rod Speed

Oh, they are WAY MORE ahead of you than that, dad! :-)

Reply to
Allodoxaphobia

I know what you mean.

Actually, my kid is pretty technical for a girl. Most girls can get boys to help them so they never learn. You only learn when you have to do *everything* by yourself, so, kids, in general, and girl kids in particular, get a *lot* of help in the simplest things (like setting up a wifi hotspot).

The other kid, with the iPhone, still hasn't figured out how to get the phone working, nor her iPad, so, at the moment, both kids are using the setup that my kid did on Android.

Up until now, I've set up everything for my kid. But with her being on her own, she had to learn things and nobody there knew enough technically to help her.

  1. She had to learn, on her own, that ROAMING had to be turned on (in the USA, it wasn't an issue).

  1. She had to learn, on her own, how to set up a WiFi hotspot (with ubiquitous WiFi in the USA, and good cellular data, she didn't have the need in the USA). [And she knew enough to ask me what the difference was between tethering and personal hotspots.]

  2. She had to learn, on her own, how to use and interpret the WiFi software (I give her credit for trying and asking me what a decibel was, and for realizing it's negative for a reason).

  1. She had to turn off her data limits (in the USA, T-Mobile limits us to 2.5GB/month, but in Europe, it's unlimited).

  2. She had to learn how to find the decibels of the nearest cellular tower in the Android settings and to then select one of the four T-Mobile roaming partners as the preferred network in the network options.

  1. Once she had that, she had to learn how to use Skype VOIP (yes, I know it's easy for you and me, but she has never had a need for VOIP before as we have a VOIP telephone with remote handsets throughout the house and she didn't have to set anything up for it. She just dials.)

  2. She even had to figure out, on her own, how to set up the SSID and password for the brother-in-law's router (up until now, someone has done all of that for her). And how to set up WiFi calling (T-Mobile says calls from her to and from the USA are free if they are on the WiFi calling setup).

  1. On her iPad, she had to learn to shut off the cellular data for specific apps (which is a nice feature of iOS that I don't think Android has as part of the OS).

Plus a bunch of stuff I don't remember.

In contrast, her friend is *still* unable to connect to AT&T by cellular and she already racked up a huge bill (her parents told me it was over $300 already but they let AT&T talk them into a different plan where they won't charge them the $300 and she gets a different plan instead).

My point is that my daughter did step up to the plate, as it's her first trip without me to Europe, and she has learned what she needed since she needs the Internet to survive. :)

Meanwhile, her friend, on the iPhone, still doesn't have any cellular Internet and is using my daughter's AP (which is OK by me, since it's free - but it will slow things down a bit having all four devices use the same

3G-at-best cellular connection).
Reply to
Paul B. Andersen

It's negative if it's less than the value that it's being compared to. Obviously, it's positive if the comparison is the other way around. You probably know that, but a casual reader (me) did a double take.

Reply to
Char Jackson

And the same for 5GHz.

Reply to
Char Jackson

Clear the cache and try again:

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

I skimmed around the various wi-fi tools available and it was the only one that produced real SNR numbers. There was one other that tried, which incidentally has the same name as WiFi Analyzer: I played with it, didn't like it, and uninstalled it.

Try using remote control software to tweak her handset. Teamviewer works on just about everything: You don't have to use a smartphone to manager her smartphone. Install it on a desktop or laptop, and use that to run her smartphone. The catch is that she will need a good wi-fi connection in order for you to run her phone. It won't work for dealing with the low wi-fi signal problem, but it can certainly help with checking settings, installing software, etc.

Speaking of installing software... the right way is to use the Google Play Store. Have your daughter give you here Google login and password. She'll no doubt protest but threats of instant impoverishment should change her attitude. Login to Google on your machine and go to "My Apps". From there, you can install any application on her phone. The next time she connects via Wi-Fi, the selected apps get downloaded and installed.

However, there's a catch. For some dumb, stupid, and unfathomable reason, Google does not allow you to uninstall an app using the play store web page. It also doesn't allow you to remove apps from the "My Apps" mess, even if you're decided that they're worthless and have already uninstalled it. My growing "My Apps" mess has about 400 apps of which I have only about 100 installed (and use maybe 10).

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Oops. Wrong version of Teamviewer. This one should let you control her smartphone:

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Yes. The way I think about it is that, at 0dB, you're the same as the standard (which is usually 1mW but it could be any standard of power).

At 3 dB, you're three times the power of the standard. At -3 dB, you're half the power of that standard.

The standard happens to be really big compared to what phones can muster, so, we're minus a pretty big number (where every 3dB is yet another halving of the power).

By the time you get to -60dB, you've halved the power 20 times successively (1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 etc.), which is really a teeny tiny amount of power *compared to the standard*.

Reply to
Paul B. Andersen

I think your find is GREAT! I had searched and didn't find it, so, I APPRECIATE the advice! I had concluded (erroneously) that there were no programs that provide the SNR, but this one does.

One catch is that I had to turn on the text display in the settings in order to *see* the SNR graph, but that's a minor catch and easily overcome.

That's an interesting idea. I hadn't realized it would be so easy to remotely control a handset. I'll keep that in mind for the future.

That's also very interesting.

I hadn't realized WHY Google Play even has URLs since I have never installed *anything* onto an Android or Apple device via a URL.

It's nice to know I can basically put it in her "shopping cart", and then the kid gets it whether she wants it or not when she connects to WiFi. Interesting way to pre-install software for a kid (especially if they keep removing it, such as with the automatic phone recorder app my youngest kid keeps removing).

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I don't want my kids uninstalling stuff I sneak on there, so that's fine.

Reply to
Paul B. Andersen

For some reason, I didn't *see* the 5GHz graphs, so, that's why I listed it that way. I only saw 2.5GHz graphs. I didn't debug why (maybe I just missed them somehow, as I know my router has a 5GHz SSID broadcast).

Reply to
Paul B. Andersen

Another way to look at the SNR headroom that is causing the problem here, given that every 3 decibels is a factor of 2x the power, if we want 9 decibels of headroom over the noise, that's 2x2x2=8 times the signal as we have noise.

Since 9 decibels isn't usually enough, we really want more than 10, so, let's say they get 12 decibels of signal over the noise, that would be 2x2x2x2=16 times the signal as there is noise.

That's about the minimum for a decent connection to WiFi.

Reply to
Paul B. Andersen

Ooops. I didn't proof read.

At 3 dB, you're *two* times the power of the standard. At -3 dB, you're half the power of that standard.

Reply to
Paul B. Andersen

I use the 'applications' button (bottom, looks like a dot-grid) to find the app I want. Long press, drag it up to 'info' or whatever seems likely, clear the cache and uninstall it. At least that's how it works on my Samsung tablets and BLU and Motorola phones. The 'apps' thing in the settings menu is relatively worthless.

Reply to
The Real Bev

Probably because your device doesn't do 5GHz. I see the same on my Moto G which is 2.4GHz capable only.

Reply to
chris

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