WAP map showing coverage areas

GregErnest
Here to help

WAP map showing coverage areas

I used to know where to find a map of my WAP's with the coverage areas.

 

Could someone direct me to that in the Dashboard?

 

Thanks!

5 REPLIES 5
BrandonS
Kind of a big deal

Wireless > Monitor > Location Heatmap

 

If you don't see that it could be that you don't have 3 or more MRs?

- Ex community all-star (⌐⊙_⊙)

I have 96 WAPs.

 

I thought I recall one which let me view overlapping areas from WAP's and not users moving around over time.

BrandonS
Kind of a big deal

I think I remember that too.   I think it was on the map of access points and had some options to show circles representing metrics like current and historic client counts. I don't think it was a coverage map though because that is not really possible without doing a passive site survey Ala Ekahau or Airmagnet, etc.

- Ex community all-star (⌐⊙_⊙)
MerakiDave
Meraki Employee
Meraki Employee

Hi @GregErnest  A couple of possible views that would help but in different places in Dashboard. 

 

If you navigate to Network-Wide > Monitor > Maps and floorplans, if you have uploaded floorplans and placed your APs accordingly, then you can view any/all floorplans and the placement of devices (not just APs but any Meraki equipment).  You can enable/disable any of those to only have APs visible on the floorplan.  Then you can also change the marker value to be the name of the AP, the model of the AP, the # of connected clients, etc.  

 

For example:

MerakiDave_0-1645311845244.png

 

In addition, if you're talking about the blue dot client placement on top of a floorplan, that would be under each individual client's status page which would include an approximate location info, like this for example:

 

MerakiDave_1-1645312064338.png

 

Next, if you navigate to Wireless > Monitor > Location Heatmap, that can provide you with a playback of client density and how clients moved around the environment over time and you can see playbacks 24 hours at a time for example.  You can view associated clients (blue dots) and unassociated clients (gray circles) as well a Bluetooth devices.  For example:

 

MerakiDave_2-1645312679861.png

 

 

And finally, you have the Organization > Monitor > Location Analytics where you can examine proximity (or capture rate) and engagement (or median visit length) and loyalty (repeat visitor rate) and you can also compare this across different sites/networks.  For example:

 

MerakiDave_3-1645312879777.png

 

As Brandon mentioned, if you are looking for an actual RF heat maps, that is best left to sophisticated 3rd party tools such as Ekahau or similar to import your floorplans, specify all the details like building materials, ceiling heights, etc and generate more formal predictive reports..

 

One last point is a reminder that you can also leverage the LSP (local status page, unless you intentionally disabled them) and as long as your associated to an SSID, you can point a browser to ap.meraki.com and see your client's info, the AP's info, neighboring BSSIDs and on that LSP there is also a speed test button and graphs for 2.4 and 5GHz channel utilizations.  So you can leverage that built-in LPS to walk around the environment and conduct you own mini site survey with that one particular client, find coverage holes, etc.  

For example:

MerakiDave_4-1645313589800.png

 

Here are some links for more info:

https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Monitoring_and_Reporting/Using_a_Floor_Plan_...

https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Monitoring_and_Reporting/Placing_Devices_on_...

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Monitoring_and_Reporting/Location_Analytics

https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Tools_and_Troubleshooting/Using_the_Cisco_Me...

 

Hope that helps!

 

 

Meraki Dave.

 

Thanks for all that information.

 

We are a campus with many separate buildings. Many have 3 WAP's in a dorm. Larger areas have multiple WAP's with overlaps. Some of the dorms are near the main buildings and overlap can occur.

When I took over our Meraki infrastructure two years ago, I saw a screen where it simply displayed circles around each WAP with red-orange-yellow circles which would map out rough coverage. This is what I was hoping to find again.

 

Or was this the Heat Maps? I didn't remember seeing anything over time nor moving clients. (Although I had already found those very nice features.)

 

The immediate need for it has now passed, but I would like it for the future.. Either the Location analytics or the Heat Map were where I thought it might be.

 

Thanks everyone for the help.
-Greg

Get notified when there are additional replies to this discussion.
Welcome to the Meraki Community!
To start contributing, simply sign in with your Cisco account. If you don't yet have a Cisco account, you can sign up.
Labels