One of the fun areas I get to work in is wireless networking (WiFi for the colloquial version/shorthand - we won't get into the debate on what it stands for/means). This part of my job is helping clients plan, deploy, and validate their wireless networks. While I don't do this full-time, I do it enough that having the proper toolset is critical. The current "Industry Standard" toolset for this is by a company called Ekahau. They offer a suite of products for this. I've used them in the past, and overall, it's okay. But a new company came onto the scene in the last couple of years that has been really exciting to work with. Hamina is based out of Finland and has some incredible talent. This isn't meant to be a full-on pitch for Hamina, though, so let's sum it up as: if you're not looking into what they have, you're not doing yourself any favors.
They recently announced an on-site survey app and associated hardware (for data gathering). The immediate flurry of questions I (and a bunch of others) occupied quite a few days of discussions on all the platforms. And as more information has come out in the intervening months, we've all been waiting on the actual hardware. Well the wait is over.
It's here:
Contained in that little box (7.25x6.25 inches or 185x160mm give or take) is a whole lot of awesome. Designed and built by Oscium for Hamina, the Nomad has 4 WiFi-6E radios and weighs like nothing. Having done surveys before with the Ekahau Sidekick (we never jumped to the Sidekick 2), the difference there is IMMENSE. While yes, you wear it around your body the weight over long surveys definitely starts to come into play.
Some key factors here:
- The case it comes in is semi-rigid with a single zipper closure
- There are 2 USB-C connectors. One is for data, and the other is for power delivery. This makes it feasible to connect the data to your iPad and the power to a USB battery so you don't drain your iPad battery powering the adaptor.
- There is a USB-A port to plug in a spectrum analyzer (like the MetaGeek Wi-Spy DBx or a WiPry Clarity). Since the majority of our surveys are validation only we don't have as much use for this as folks doing much more troubleshooting (yes this is a whole other blog post). This is a "coming soon" feature at the time I'm writing this.
- The ports are labeled on the back of the tool. The data and power are on separate sides of the unit, which lends itself nicely to a battery pack in your back pocket/backpack while you hold your ipad.
- The tool has little attachment "thingies" that let you clip it into (and out of) the strap really easily. You can also just take those off as they just loop through the case of the tool (via screwed in brackets). I can see this being nice for some custom "mount" solutions (belt loops anyone?! or for my friend Peter Mackenzie a custom PVC drone Mount?!)
- There is a 1/4-20 hole ready for attaching to a tripod or similar mount.
- The 65W wall charger comes with both an A and C port so you can use the 2 included USB cables (C to C and A to C, braided sheathing) to charge both your iPad and the tool at the same time! Nice move there!
So, wrapping up the unboxing, I'm impressed with the overall package. From size, to weight, to presentation. There was absolutely thought put into this by people who clearly have spent time doing actual site surveys. No need for me to go buy any USB adaptors to route the cable cleanly, etc. It's also able to easily be dropped into my backpack without fear of it getting lost (which si a possibility with all the crap in my work backpack). A loop on the back/bottom of the case *might* have been nice for strapping onto the MOLLE straps on my backpack, but honestly, it might have just been annoying, too, so no loss there (plus I can always just get an alternate bag for that if needed!)
The hardware is nice, but what about the software though? Let's take a quick look! First up, Hamina has made the specific decision to support only the Apple side of the house currently. This is perfectly fine with me being an Apple ecosystem guy. There is some very practical reasoning behind this. As Joel Crane from Hamina stated in the WLAN Pro slack: "Android support, I am sorry to say, is not on the roadmap. We have several big Android fans at Hamina (myself included), but to support it, we'd have to cut our development velocity in half. We've decided to just focus on iOS/iPadOS/macOS (which is all one codebase). An iPad is $330, hopefully cheap enough that it's a "whatever" purchase, or possibly a chance to get familiar with another ecosystem/client device."
So, a quick install from the Apple App Store later and I'm ready to go. I fired the app up, signed into my Hamina account, and poof, there were all my project files! I can also create a new one from right there.
Tapping on my demo project brought up my floor plans and the survey interface. The point and continuous survey methods are pretty similar to the Ekahau app, but there is also a new mode called "Line Survey" that lets you do just a single line. Unlike continuous where you have to keep tap, tap, tapping it in as you go, in the line survey you tap to start a line and tap to end. This definitely will have some benefits when doing surveys in more crowded locations where you can walk in a line, but might get stopped more than you remember to deal with in continuous mode.
Overall without having even looked at the app I was able to quickly survey my house (much to the confusion of my dog and family). The intuitive interface (once I remembered the difference between line and continuous) made the survey a snap.
In addition to the survey mode there is a Realtime viewer. This can give you a view into the realtime data of whats going on from the survey tool's perspective. This is where the tool's use for troubleshooting comes into play! This includes reminding me that my neighbors are jerks on the 2.4GHz band dropping in there on channel 3.
While there are lots of different software packages (shout out to Intuitbits!) that can be used to see this data it's nice having it right here in the survey tool.
Finally rouding out the menu options is the settings screen. Here, we have the ability to switch to the WLAN Pi for survey! I love my WLAN Pi's, and being able to take advantage of that for surveys (with some caveats) is awesome.
After I was done with my surveys I was able to login to the Hamina portal and view all of the survey data. I could jump between predictive and survey data and tune the predictive to match what I was seeing in the survey pretty quickly. As expected, based on my off-the-cuff experiences, my outside walls were MUCH more problematic than a simple brick wall. The foil backing on the interior drywall and however the brick veneer is attached lead to attenuation more like a concrete wall. As I switched the wall type and tuned the placement of the APs I got a very close match between the 2. So overall things are looking good! Now, I can start to look for a more optimal AP placement to get some better coverage in a couple of discovered weaker areas.
So, to wrap up this first thoughts article, overall, I am very happy. I've been hoping that I could switch entirely to Hamina this year for all of my WiFi surveys and after this I think it could be possible. I have a big validation survey coming up later this year, and right now I see no reason that Hamina Onsite won't be able to fulfill the requirements. There are some enhancements needed on the reporting side for me, but knowing the Hamina team, these are already in progress. This team has continuously proven that they listen to the WiFi community and implement features that not only make sense, but are asked for. And even some pretty fun and cool ones that I wouldn't have thought of (being able to download a .obj file for 3D printing Antenna patterns?!). So, once again, Hamina proves why they are my go-to for wifi planning, and now on-site validation. Well done folks!