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

Cancel that. Turns out you can just hold down the power button to cancel the download. Phew |-)

Typical Samsung, the manual says nothing about it and that screen should have that on it.

Jeff Liebermann wrote

Bit of a saga.

Turns out that that documentation is wrong, you need to hold down the power/lock key and the volume down key to get into the menu.

When you select wipe the cache in the menu, and initiate that with the power button, it does claim to be clearing it, but then says Error.

And it makes no difference to the crash in WiFi SNR.

Looks like you have a GT-P5110 which is a "Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 inch wi-fi only". When I clear the device cache, it usually demands that I restart when it's done. If you're getting an error or not getting the restart message, you might be doing something wrong. Each device has different instructions because of the availability of different controls and buttons. The link I provided give you the instructions for the "Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 inch T-Mobile" which is probably different from yours. I couldn't find anything specific for the wi-fi only version, but this looks more like what you found:

Any chance you're rooted the tablet and/or are running a custom ROM?

Just to let you know, but not to rub salt into the wound, it worked just fine for me and my daughter on our Android phones.

It's a VERY NICE utility, as getting the NOISE level is critical when debugging WiFi connectivity issues.

Without that, you're just shooting blindly when your Signal Strength drops below, oh, about 10 decibels of the noise level on a typical mobile device.

The signal strength meter on the other recommended app, with the beeping, is also very nice, as you can walk around the room and easily see five or six decibels difference just depending on where in the room you sit.

Bearing in mind that six decibels is FOUR TIMES the signal strength, this is a tool that is absolutely required for anyone who really needs to understand why they can't connect.

Of course, I do understand that, here in the USA, we often have such HUGE signal strength, that none of this measurement matters.

It only matters when it matters, and it doesn't matter when things are going so well that you have low noise and high signal strength.

I downloaded every tool that was suggested onto my Samsung Galaxy S3 unrooted phone, and it all worked perfectly (well, except for not seeing 5GHz results in one app, but I must have missed it somehow).

Hey Jeff, I love the WiFI SNR app you found, and I don't know HOW you found it without me having known about it prior, but I'm glad you did!

Rest assured, I have been playing with it for two days straight now, and I can't get over how it tells me such useful information.

One question only of you, which is maybe a device-specific problem, and I don't want you to research it but just to let me know what you "see" on your screen.

QUESTION: Do you "see" the yellow SNR graph?

Here is a test I just ran now:

I don't "see" the yellow SNR graph on my Samsung Galaxy S3:

I had to go into the WiFi SNR settings to turn on the option to "Display results in text" (which you can see in the shot above).

So, it's not a big deal (since the SNR *value* is what matters). But, I'm just wondering why I don't see the yellow graph?

Does anyone else see that yellow graph?

Jeff Liebermann wrote

Correct.

It does restart auto just after it reports the error.

Unlikely once I get the menu, all you can do is scroll thru the menu entrys with the volume up and down button and select the one you want with the power button. That does work fine, and it initially claims that its Erasing, and then shows Error, so I must be telling it to clear the cache properly.

It does in fact have the same buttons as are documented, its just that the action of the Volume up down button is reversed on the device from the documentation.

Yes.

In the sense that that one is not wifi only presumably.

I did find someone reporting the same error in the documentation, which is how I worked out the right way.

No, that one has the same problem, you actually use the Volume down button, not the Volume up button to get to see the menu.

No, completely standard.

I looked again, I do see the 5GHz channel now, but I no longer see the 2.4 GHz channel! :)

I figured it out.

Both are on the same screen, but you can only see one at a time. So, you don't slide to the next screen.

You hit the little button that says 5G or 2.4G at the top left, and then it gives you lovely little parabolas for each WiFi access point it sees.

These little parabolas are GREAT because you can see OVERLAP and you can see how many decibels they are, even when multiple SSIDs are the SAME (e.g., I have a wifi repeater in my home with the same SSID, so I can see exactly which router I'm connecting to).

I don't know how I lived without this stuff before, but, it isn't needed, I agree, when everything is working perfectly and you have huge signal strength and puny noise levels.

It's needed when things aren't so good, which is what is happening in Europe right now for my kid and her friend with their iPads, iPhone, and Android phone.

One more bit of detail. That little button at top left that says 5G or 2.4G doesn't show up for more than a second or two.

But, if you tap the middle of the phone, it shows up.

If you ask me, that's not the best user interface, because you have to actually know it before you'd do it. But, it's easy enough to do once you know it.

So, with the Moto G, you probably can *see* the 5G graph also. Another of my kids has a Moto G (first generation), so, I can test it tonight when he comes home (he's way more technical than my daughter, and he is years younger, so he probably wouldn't have these kinds of issues that she's having).

At least neither is as slow as the other kid in Europe with the Apple-only equipment. She's almost not worth talking to for details, since she expects it all to just work and, well, it would, if they had better signal strength.

At least my daughter is roaming around the place with the signal strength meter trying to find the best location to get signal (which is something positive, instead of just moaning that it doesn't work).

Paul B. Andersen wrote

It works fine for me too except that it crashes when I enter the settings.

Yeah, and I found that when allowing my neighbour to use my wifi.

But WiFi SNR doesn't allow me to see the wifi extender separately which is a real downside for me.

Which one ?

Yeah, that would be handy.

And why the connection is so flaky. That's what I would have liked to know when setting up the wifi extender.

It would also be handy to be able to see when its stopped. That has only happened the once so far in what must be about 6 months now. It got water into the mains cable on a reel. I have the extender down the middle of the neighbour's backyard, plugged into a long extension lead on a roll up cable. I put that under an upturned plastic bin and didn't notice that there was a crack in the bottom of the bin and the mains socket on the reel filled up with water after a big storm.

We have very little public wifi here, just the public library and McDs and they are nowhere near my house. Country town in Australia.

I share my wifi with both of my neighbours, one of them with a metal fence between the wifi extender and their house, surprised it works fine. I was planning to mount the wifi engender under the eaves at the back of the house that is nearest to both of them but didn't need to bother, it works fine under the bucket half way down one of them's backyard.

I did see it yesterday when I first installed it but haven't seen it today for some reason.

Uninstalling and reinstalling made no difference, still don't see it.

Maybe its been snooping on my usenet posts and has turned it off to spite me, even tho I don't do usenet on my tablet.

It never shows up for me.

That doesn't happen either.

True.

I've just noticed that the orientation of the tablet is what makes the difference. Its there when vertical but not when horizontal and with it vertical and laid on the crap to the left of my chair when typing here, it usually goes away even when vertical.

And both the signal strength and the SNR to vary quite a bit when you turn the tablet from vertical to horizontal, not very surprisingly, presumably that's because the antenna is mostly vertical in this Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 P5110

Paul B. Andersen wrote

I don't have any button there, presumably because there is no 5G service on the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 P5100.

I don't see that at all.

I'm so glad Jeff suggested WiFi SNR!

I tried WiFi SNR on the Moto G when my teen came home and the yellow SNR line shows up perfectly on that phone.

I turned on the text output anyway, but it's not needed:

So, these two suggested freeware apps are definite keepers!

1. WiFi SNR
2. WiFI Analyzer

As someone mentioned with WiFi Analyzer freeware, the Moto G must not have 5GHz capability though, as there was no 5GHz screen.

That's interesting.

I noticed that this seems to happen with the Moto G also, but, since I can't see the yellow graph on the Samsung Galaxy S3, I can't as easily tell what you've seen.

I don't know how anyone lives without this wonderful data! It helps me understand what is really going on.

Wow. RodSpeed, that was a great observation. You're only slightly wrong in that observation, but, I only know that because I just tested it.

I'm glad I did test what you said because I was wondering if we even needed Wifi Analyzer anymore, but, clearly WiFi Analyzer does a MUCH BETTER JOB of showing you *both* signal strengths of both SSIDs when they're the same using a WiFi extender.

What I did was walk next to my router1, and then walk over to router2, both of which have the same SSID but are on different frequencies.

Bearing in mind that at the top of the WiFi SNR page you see the frequency and the SSID, I was hoping that I would see the frequency change as the cellphone switched over from one router to the other. THE GOOD of WiFi SNR: WiFi SNR did show the *different* frequency at the top, but, THE BAD of WiFi SNR: It didn't switch the readout automatically. I had to restart WiFi SNR and only *then* did it show the different frequency at the top.

The good news is that WiFi Analyzer showed both SSIDs perfectly the entire time, and it shows the signal strength of both, where you can see one parabola shrink as you get further away and the other parabola grow at the same time.

The bad news of WiFi Analyzer is that you can't tell which SSID is the one being used, since they're both the same name.

The good news with InSSIDer is that it gives you the BSSID at the same time, and, most importantly, it puts an asterisk next to the one parabola that the phone is connected to.

So, I watched the asterisk start at the tall parabola, and then, as I walked away from that router toward another router, I saw the parabola shrink and the other parabola grow but it didn't switch then. Only when the second parabola grew appreciably bigger than the first did the asterisk switch over to the new parabola.

So, in summary *all three* programs do something useful that the others dont.

1. WiFi SNR gives you the signal to noise ratio.
2. WiFi Analyzer gives you a really nice signal meter (with beeps)
3. InSSIDer let's you debug when you have a router extension with the same SSID.

I feel sorry for the people who haven't downloaded these wonderful tools yet! :)

I had posted a picture of it before (but I don't remember the URL). The WiFi Analyzer has a wonderful signal strength meter that looks like an analog voltmeter.

It's really pretty, and it moves quickly keeping in tune with the signal strength changes with just the right amount of damping.

Best of all, it beeps, so, if you're on a ladder or needing your hands, you can tell what the signal strength is just by the increasing frequency and sound of the beeps.

With that meter alone, you can walk around a room and find the best (and worst) spots for your wifi signal.

It's a keeper for that one thing alone, and it has more.

I don't want to dig up the figures (because I probably can't find them) but I ran a test using these tools about six months or so ago, because the wife kept complaining that her Android phone had no problem connecting to the WiFi extender when she was in her study, but that the iPad wouldn't connect but that it did connect when she was closer to the WiFi extender.

She kept insisting that the WiFi extender I set up was not working.

I used these tools to prove to her what the problem was, and, she has learned to live with it.

But the point of telling this story is that I agree with you that the tools are wonderful for showing what is really going on and making good decisions instead of just guessing and assuming the equipment is "broken" (there's nothing wrong with any of the equipment - I've proven that in other ways). It's just the way it works and is designed, and there's nothing you can do about it.