Ekahau AI Pro - Channel Interference
With the Ekahau Pro 11 version, Ekahau has renamed the product to Ekahau AI Pro and completely changed the UI. How good or bad this is, everyone should judge for themselves and is not part of this blog.
This blog is about the “Channel Interference” visualization. Since we are currently still using Ekahau Pro 10 for reports, but Ekahau AI Pro for working, we noticed a big difference.
The first image is the default view in Ekahau AI Pro, the 2nd image is the default view from Ekahau Pro 10:
Channel Interference look “better” with Ekahau AI Pro.
After a short moment of shock, the explanation was confirmed in the release notes:
Okay, instead of the worst channel, the value for “Primary Association” is now displayed. If we go into the settings, however, this is called “Primary Signal”, but probably has the same meaning?
Unfortunately I can’t tell, because I didn’t find an entry for this at Ekahau.
Primary Signal vs Primary Association
Primary Signal means for me that per hexagon the channel of the strongest access point is used.
Primary Association means for me that per Hexagon the Access Point is selected, to which I was connected during validation.
These are two different pairs of shoes. According to Apple, the iPhone changes the access point from -70dBm. With a validation for -65dBm signal strength / RSSI, the Primary Association will not correspond everywhere to the Access Point of the Primary Signal.
Ekahau Pro 10 vs Ekahau AI Pro (11)
But now we come to the real problem. In Ekahau Pro, the Co Channel Interference was displayed based on the worst channel. Additionally you could adjust a minimum signal strength.
In Ekahau AI Pro, a different value is now displayed by default. These views differ sometimes very much. So you have to consider what you really want to show or analyze.
Personally, I am interested in the real Co Channel Interference, because I never know where my end device is connected. Also, these are more relevant from an access point perspective. However, the Co Channel Interference on the strongest access point look much better, of course. But here it is as always “it depends”.
Important is, I don’t want to say herewith what Ekahau does wrong. It is more important that everyone questions what is interesting for me. My personal favorite is “Worst Association + Association Limit” for the view from the client. I think this change is good, as hopefully this will shake some awake, not the result.
Always question what you see!
