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1. Best Wifi Router For Mac 2019
2. Best Wifi Extender For Mac
3. Osx Wifi Analyzer

Get an app that fixes WiFi

Best Wifi Router For Mac 2019

WiFi is something we all take advantage of, day to day, which makes it frustrating when your WiFi signal isn't reliable. Like so much technology we use often, we expect WiFi to just work!

But it doesn’t always “just work,” and finding the answers for why your WiFi is failing or not as performant can be confusing. Not to worry – we’ve got you covered. Here we’ll discuss the best Mac WiFi analyzer apps, why you should have a WiFi analyzer for Mac, and what a great analyzer can do for you.

What is WiFi Analyzer?

Here’s a scenario we’ve all run into often: our Mac or iPhone says it has a WiFi signal, but you can’t get online. There’s a WiFi available, and your device is accessing it, but nothing is happening.

Sometimes it’s your internet service provider; the company you get internet access through may be experiencing difficulties or disruptions, which can affect you. More often, it’s your WiFi signal that’s having issues. Something about the signal getting from the router in your home or via public WiFi is causing your signal to become unreliable, which can render you unproductive.

A WiFi analyzer helps you diagnose what the issue really is without toggling your computer or router off. While the ‘turn it off and on’ ethos often works, it’s not always indicative of what’s going on. With a proper wifi analyzer Mac computers can stay online via the strongest signal available.

Reasons why you might need to use WiFi Analyzer App

You may be wondering why you need a Mac OS WiFi analyzer. Finding the best wifi analyzer Mac computers can use will help you stay online, discover why your internet signal is poor, and how to fix it quickly.

Best Wifi Extender For Mac

Here are a few reasons to get a WiFi analyzer for your Mac:

• Your home WiFi has dead spots. As you use your Mac around the home, you notice videos don’t stream clearly in some spots, or web pages don’t load as quickly.
• Your Mac says you have a WiFi connection, but nothing is happening. We’ve all been there: your Mac says you’re connected to the internet, and your router indicates everything is fine – but pages won’t load and email isn’t coming through.
• You have multiple WiFi signals available. Sometimes there are multiple signals available to you, but knowing which is best can be a guessing game. With a WiFi scanner Mac devices can analyze signal strength and reliability with ease. When your device knows WiFi signal strength Mac lets you switch signals easily; and a WiFi scanner tells you in real time if something changes with an internet connection.

Best WiFi Analyzers for macOS

Okay, now that you know why you want a WiFi analyzer for your Mac – which are the best?

There’s no single solution. Everyone’s needs are unique, and finding the right WiFi analyzer may take a bit of trial and error – but don’t worry, we’ve got some great advice for you. Here are some excellent services and apps for analyzing and troubleshooting your Mac’s WiFi connectivity.

Mac Wireless Diagnostics Tool

Your Mac has a built-in wireless diagnostics tool that does a serviceable job of monitoring your WiFi signal. It’s a bit hidden, though, so carefully follow the instructions below to use it:

1. Hold down the option key on your Mac keyboard, and select the WiFi icon in your Mac’s menu bar (Note: You can also press command+space and enter “wireless diagnostics” into Siri Spotlight Search to open your Mac’s wireless diagnostics tool.)
2. Select “Open Wireless Diagnostics” from the menu
3. In the ensuing popup window, select “Continue”

Your Mac will analyze your WiFi signal strength, and discover if it is working properly. If it isn’t working as your Mac feels it should, it will produce a report of all the things wrong with it at the time the tool was run, and create a summary of topics you should read up on (like “best practices”) or items that may fix your signal.

As you can imagine, this is limiting. Not only does the report only examine a snippet of time, it takes a long while to produce a report, which doesn’t give you a real time look at how your WiFi signal is performing. By the time your Mac is done creating a report on why the WiFi signal is poor, that same signal could have improved!

There are some impressive apps that do a much better job of analyzing, troubleshooting, and diagnosing your Mac’s WiFi in real-time.

NetSpot

When you’re analyzing a WiFi signal, chances are you’re met with a lot of data that’s difficult to make sense of. NetSpot has all of that data, too, but has one of the best visual representations of your Mac’s WiFi signal strength we’ve ever seen.

NetSpot’s main menu shows you a network’s name, channel, band, and other items like it’s signal to noise ratio. These are all really handy bits of data when you know what you’re looking for, but sometimes a visual aide is better.

Selecting a WiFi signal and selecting ‘details’ on the bottom left of the NetSpot window brings up a real time visual representation of that signal’s strength. You can also select multiple WiFi signals to compare them side by side on this evolving graphic; a great option for those with multiple signals or channels available in their home!

Another excellent feature of NetSpot is its ability to map your home, and discover dead spots for WiFi coverage. Rather than assuming why your signal strength is diminished in an area, NetSpot lets you know exactly where it’s not as great throughout your home!

WiFi Explorer

Where NetSpot has unique windows for visual graphics and data, WiFi Explorer keeps it all in one window so you don’t have to navigate. It uses familiar side bar options for discovering more about a signal, or navigating the app – but it’s main information window is where all the data is displayed.

You will see all of the data you’re looking for, like channel, signal strength, bands, and even the maximum speeds the band is capable of. Selecting a new WiFi signal automatically triggers the visual graphics at the bottom of the window to display that signal’s data in a morphing graph. You can even select bars on the center graph to change the view in the signal-strength app on the left side; a great option for those with mesh networks who are experiencing poor signal performance when they shouldn't be.

iStumbler

iStumbler is another great app for discovering which WiFi networks are available to you, and getting detailed information on their signal strength, including the signal to noise ratio for each signal. The app also has a great map view that shows you where routers are placed, providing a holistic view of how WiFi in your area is laid out, and where you may find the best signal.

WiFi Scanner

Another native Mac app, WiFi Scanner is much like WiFi Explorer in that it provides a single window that displays all the information about available WiFi signals in your area. It also has graphs to view when you’re more interested in visual aides, and allows you to toggle the information seen on-screen to suit your needs.

Monitor your Network connections

Sometimes you don’t need a ton of info, but you need to know why your WiFi is underperforming quickly. That’s where iStat Menus steps in. It lives in your menu bar, and provides quick-glance access to information like CPU performance, battery health, and yes – network performance.

iStat Menus has drop-down menus that provide high-level information about your WiFi signal, and hovering over items can surface even more sub-menus with additional data. Though it lives in your menu bar, iStat Menus can actually give some pretty granular detail on how your WiFi is performing. The menu bar icons show you upload and download speeds, too.

Conclusion

WiFi shouldn’t be a mystery. We tend to think of it as a thing that should ‘just work’ but it often doesn’t. Simple fixes like unplugging the modem and router for a short time may work, but they’re not indicative of what the problems are.

Osx Wifi Analyzer

Instead, find a WiFi analyzer app that suits your needs, and offers the features you want. So often, simply switching to a better WiFi signal is the fix you need.

The apps mentioned here today – WiFi Explorer, iStat Menus, and NetSpot – are all available for free as part of a seven day trial of Setapp, an amazing suite of productivity apps for your Mac. In addition to these three apps, you’ll get immediate access to nearly 200 other native Mac apps, and retaining unlimited access to the full Setapp suite after your trial period is just $9.99 per month, so why wait? Give Setapp a try!

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

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This article is for network administrators and others who manage their own network. If you're trying to join a Wi-Fi network, one of these articles should help:

• Mac: Connect to Wi-Fi and resolve Wi-Fi issues.
• iPhone, iPad, iPod touch: Connect to Wi-Fi and resolve Wi-Fi issues.

Before changing the settings on your router

1. Back up your router's settings, in case you need to restore the settings.
2. Update the software on your devices. This is critical to ensure that your devices have the latest security updates and work best with each other.
   • First install the latest firmware updates for your router.
   • Then update the software on your other devices, such as on your Mac and on your iPhone or iPad.
3. On each device that previously joined the network, you might need to forget the network to ensure that the device uses the router's new settings when rejoining the network.

Router settings

To ensure that your devices can reconnect reliably to your network, apply these settings consistently to each Wi-Fi router and access point, and to each band of a dual-band, tri-band, or other multiband router.

Network name (SSID)

A single, unique name (case-sensitive)

The Wi-Fi network name, or SSID (service set identifier), is the name your network uses to advertise its presence to other devices. It's also the name that nearby users see on their device's list of available networks.

Use a name that's unique to your network, and make sure that all routers on your network use the same name for every band they support. For example, don't use common names or default names such as linksys, netgear, dlink, wireless, or 2wire, and don't give your 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands different names.

If you don't follow this guidance, devices might not connect reliably to your network, to all routers on your network, or to all available bands of your routers. And devices that join your network are more likely to encounter other networks that have the same name, and then automatically try to connect to them.

Hidden network

Disabled

A router can be configured to hide its network name (SSID). Your router might incorrectly use ”closed” to mean hidden, and ”broadcast” to mean not hidden.

Hiding the network name doesn't conceal the network from detection or secure it against unauthorized access. And because of the way that devices search for and connect to Wi-Fi networks, using a hidden network might expose information that can be used to identify you and the hidden networks you use, such as your home network. When connected to a hidden network, your device might show a privacy warning because of this privacy risk.

To secure access to your network, use the appropriate security setting instead.

Security

WPA3 Personal for better security, or WPA2/WPA3 Transitional for compatibility with older devices

The security setting defines the type of authentication and encryption used by your router, and the level of privacy protection for data transmitted over its network. Whichever level of security you choose, always set a strong password for joining the network.

• WPA3 Personal is the newest, most secure protocol currently available for Wi-Fi devices. It works with all devices that support Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), and some older devices.
• WPA2/WPA3 Transitional is a mixed mode that uses WPA3 Personal with devices that support that protocol, while allowing older devices to use WPA2 Personal (AES) instead.
• WPA2 Personal (AES) is appropriate when you can't use one of the more secure modes. In that case, also choose AES as the encryption or cipher type, if available.

Settings that turn off security, such as None, Open, or Unsecured, are strongly discouraged. Turning off security disables authentication and encryption and allows anyone to join your network, access its shared resources (including printers, computers, and smart devices), use your internet connection, and monitor data transmitted over your network or internet connection (including the websites you visit). This is a risk even if security is turned off temporarily or for a guest network.

Don't create or join networks that use older, deprecated security protocols like WPA/WPA2 Mixed Mode, WPA Personal, TKIP, Dynamic WEP (WEP with 802.1X), WEP Transitional Security Network, WEP Open, or WEP Shared. These are no longer secure, and they reduce network reliability and performance. Apple devices show a security warning when joining such networks.

MAC address filtering, authentication, access control

Disabled

When this feature is enabled, your router can be set up to allow only devices that have specified MAC (media access control) addresses to join the network. You shouldn't rely on this feature to prevent unauthorized access to your network, for these reasons:

• It doesn't prevent network observers from monitoring or intercepting traffic on the network.
• MAC addresses can easily be copied, spoofed (impersonated), or changed.
• To help protect user privacy, some Apple devices use a different MAC address for each Wi-Fi network.

To secure access to your network, use the appropriate security setting instead.

Automatic firmware updates

Enabled

If possible, set your router to automatically install software and firmware updates as they become available. Firmware updates can affect the security settings available to you, and they deliver other important improvements to the stability, performance, and security of your router.

Radio mode

All (preferred),or Wi-Fi 2 through Wi-Fi 6 (802.11a/g/n/ac/ax)

These settings, available separately for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, control which versions of the Wi-Fi standard the router uses for wireless communication. Newer versions offer better performance and support more devices concurrently.

It's usually best to enable every mode offered by your router, rather then a subset of those modes. All devices, including older devices, can then connect using the fastest radio mode they support. This also helps reduce interference from nearby legacy networks and devices.

Bands

Enable all bands supported by your router

A Wi-Fi band is like a street over which data can flow. More bands provide more data capacity and performance for your network.

Channel

Auto

Each band of your router is divided into multiple, independent communication channels, like lanes in a street. When channel selection is set to automatic, your router selects the best Wi-Fi channel for you.

If your router doesn't support automatic channel selection, choose whichever channel performs best in your network environment. That varies depending on the Wi-Fi interference in your network environment, which can include interference from any other routers and devices that are using the same channel. If you have multiple routers, configure each to use a different channel, especially if they are close to each other.

Channel width

20MHz for the 2.4GHz band
Auto orall widths (20MHz, 40MHz, 80MHz) for the 5GHz band

Channel width specifies how large of a ”pipe” is available to transfer data. Wider channels are faster but more susceptible to interference and more likely to interfere with other devices.

• 20MHz for the 2.4GHz band helps to avoid performance and reliability issues, especially near other Wi-Fi networks and 2.4GHz devices, including Bluetooth devices.
• Auto or all channel widths for the 5GHz band ensures the best performance and compatibility with all devices. Wireless interference is less of a concern in the 5GHz band.

DHCP

Enabled, if your router is the only DHCP server on the network

DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol) assigns IP addresses to devices on your network. Each IP address identifies a device on the network and enables it to communicate with other devices on the network and internet. A network device needs an IP address much like a phone needs a phone number.

Your network should have only one DHCP server. If DHCP is enabled on more than one device (such as on both your cable modem and router), address conflicts might prevent some devices from connecting to the internet or using network resources.

DHCP lease time

8 hours for home or office networks; 1 hour for hotspots or guest networks

DHCP lease time is the length of time that an IP address assigned to a device is reserved for that device.

Wi-Fi routers usually have a limited number of IP addresses that they can assign to devices on the network. If that number is depleted, the router can't assign IP addresses to new devices, and those devices can't communicate with other devices on the network and internet. Reducing DHCP lease time allows the router to more quickly reclaim and reassign old IP addresses that are no longer being used.

NAT

Enabled, if your router is the only device providing NAT on the network

NAT (network address translation) translates between addresses on the internet and addresses on your network. NAT can be understood by imagining a company's mail department, where deliveries to employees at the company's street address are routed to employee offices within the building.

Generally, enable NAT only on your router. If NAT is enabled on more than one device (such as on both your cable modem and router), the resulting ”double NAT” might cause devices to lose access to certain resources on the network or internet.

WMM

Enabled

WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) prioritizes network traffic to improve the performance of a variety of network applications, such as video and voice. All routers that support Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) or later should have WMM enabled by default. Disabling WMM can affect the performance and reliability of devices on the network.

Device features that can affect Wi-Fi connections

These features might affect how you set up your router or the devices that connect to it.

Private Wi-Fi Address

If you're connecting to a Wi-Fi network from an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple Watch, learn about using private Wi-Fi addresses in iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and watchOS 7.

Location Services

Make sure that your device has Location Services turned on for Wi-Fi networking, because regulations in each country or region define the Wi-Fi channels and wireless signal strength allowed there. Location Services helps to ensure that your device can reliably see and connect to nearby devices, and that it performs well when using Wi-Fi or features that rely on Wi-Fi, such as AirPlay or AirDrop.

On your Mac:

1. Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Security & Privacy.
2. Click the lock in the corner of the window, then enter your administrator password.
3. In the Privacy tab, select Location Services, then select Enable Location Services.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the list of apps and services, then click the Details button next to System Services.
5. Select Wi-Fi Networking, then click Done.

On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

1. Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services.
2. Turn on Location Services.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the list, then tap System Services.
4. Turn on Networking & Wireless (or Wi-Fi Networking).
   

Auto-Join when used with wireless carrier Wi-Fi networks

Wireless carrier Wi-Fi networks are public networks set up by your wireless carrier and their partners. Your iPhone or other Apple cellular device treats them as known networks and automatically connects to them.

If you see ”Privacy Warning” under the name of your carrier's network in Wi-Fi settings, your cellular identity could be exposed if your device were to join a malicious hotspot impersonating your carrier's Wi-Fi network. To avoid this possibility, you can prevent your iPhone or iPad from automatically rejoining your carrier’s Wi-Fi network:

1. Go to Settings > Wi-Fi.
2. Tap next to the wireless carrier's network.
3. Turn off Auto-Join.