We’re re-evaluating WiFi in a client office and I did a walkthrough/survey on a Friday when basically nobody was there. Maybe 10–15 people onsite. On a normal day it’s closer to 90 or 100.
And of course, because WiFi loves making fools of us, the network looked… mostly fine.
Coverage didn’t seem terrible. The signal in most areas was decent enough. Nothing jumped out as “wow, this is obviously broken.” Which is annoying, because user complaints make it sound like the place is held together with string and optimism.
Now I’m wondering if I just surveyed the office on “easy mode.”
On one hand, signal is signal, walls are walls, APs are where they are, so maybe the basic picture is still valid. On the other hand, a mostly empty office is not real life. Fewer bodies, fewer clients, less contention, less random nonsense in the air.
I’m thinking of going back on a packed day and redoing it, so I can compare what the place looks like when humans are actually present and using the thing.
Would you trust the first survey as a decent baseline, or is testing under real occupancy basically mandatory if I want the truth?
You surveyed it on peaceful mode, yes. An office with 15 people in it is not the same as an office with 100 people, all with laptops, phones, probably a few hotspots they “definitely aren’t using,” Bluetooth junk, and the usual mystery interference nobody admits to. So:
quiet survey = baseline
busy survey = reality
If users are complaining under load, then no, I would not stop with the Friday ghost-town version.
Quiet office survey tells you coverage. Busy office survey tells you whether users are going to hate you. Those are related, but not the same thing.
If I were you, I’d keep the first survey and then do another one on a normal busy day. Compare them. And if you want to make that comparison easier, a tool like NetSpot is actually handy for this kind of sanity check. It’s good for seeing whether the issue is just coverage or whether the network starts feeling worse in the same locations once the office is under real load.
Also, not to be rude, but this is one of the classic WiFi mistakes:“Coverage looks okay, so the network must be okay. ” No. Absolutely not.
Coverage is one piece. Capacity is another. Interference is another.
Client behavior is another. Real occupancy matters.
That’s why I’d do both surveys. Use the empty-office one as your clean RF baseline, then use the busy-day one as the “this is what users actually live with” version.