AirWitness
The Wi-Fi says “connected.” The ticket says otherwise.
A guest cannot get online. A call keeps dropping. Everything looks fine from the controller, but the person sitting in front of you is having a very different experience.
AirWitness helps you see the network from that person's side. Watch the wireless conditions, work through the likely causes, and keep the measurements, notes and reports together—so the next conversation starts with evidence instead of another round of “it should be working.”
Built by Tom Hardy for the kind of troubleshooting that happens out in the field.
See what your client sees
Open Wi-Fi Monitor and watch the access points around you: signal strength, channels, bands and the details your adapter and operating system can actually provide. Filter a busy list down to the network you care about, follow the charts, and inspect the reasons behind a finding.
Have an AP inventory? Bring it along. An exact BSSID match can turn a cryptic radio address into a familiar access point name and location. Unknown access points stay unknown rather than acquiring a convincing but invented identity.
Show what changed
Take a Before snapshot. Make the change. Take After.
AirWitness lets you compare the wireless evidence side by side and export an HTML report someone else can open without installing the app. It's a much better starting point for “did that help?” than two screenshots taken from memory.
The report keeps the available measurements and their context. A prettier score is a useful clue, not a guarantee that every application is suddenly happy.
Follow the problem, keep the story
Choose a guided investigation for problems such as a guest outage, slow connection, captive portal or DNS trouble. AirWitness gathers the supported evidence and brings findings and next steps together while keeping the underlying measurements available to inspect. Some recipes and controls depend on the operating system.
A project holds the work across sessions: ticket and site details, technician notes, captures, screenshots and other attachments. Come back tomorrow, add another visit, or hand the saved project to the next person without rebuilding the story from scattered folders.
Need a quick place to park a command or an observation? Scratch Pad follows you around the app, saves your notes, and can float beside the work.
A few more tools in the bag
Sometimes the next step needs a local Syslog receiver, a TFTP or SFTP service, an iperf3 test, or a carefully controlled DHCP test. AirWitness brings those tools into the same workspace, with their own start and stop controls.
They are real network tools. Permissions, supported interfaces and the network you're connected to still matter; the detailed guide explains the practical limits and setup. Use an isolated segment for DHCP experiments.
Private testing now. A public release ahead.
We’re targeting public availability around mid-November 2026, with timing depending on testing. Until then, access is by invitation.
The Windows edition is in private testing. The Apple Silicon Mac edition is in private testing and is approaching Windows feature parity: the same projects, notes, reports, inventory and familiar workspace, with native Mac Wi-Fi observations and packet capture underneath.
That does not mean a public Mac download is available yet. We are testing the Mac build and preparing it to move forward alongside Windows. Intel Macs are not a current target; Linux and Android are not current releases.
A few things to know on a Mac
- Let macOS share Wi-Fi details. Location permission lets AirWitness see network names and access point identifiers. Local Network permission may also be needed for local tests.
- Enable capture once. The Mac's built-in tcpdump can collect packets. Enable packet capture… asks for a one-time administrator approval so later captures can run under your ordinary account. You can remove that access from the app too.
- Bring Wireshark for the deeper analysis. Capture files can be saved without it; protocol analysis needs Wireshark's tshark.
- Expect a few different tools. The Mac has its own Wi-Fi report. Windows event-log stories, MAC-address changes and Enterprise 802.1X connection setup are not implemented on Mac. Available readings can differ, and ordinary packet capture is not monitor-mode radio capture.
- Keep the supplied install instructions handy. Mac updates are manual for now. Saved Windows Wi-Fi passphrases do not travel to the Mac, and the Mac does not save those passphrases between uses.
The Mac target is Apple Silicon—M1 and later—with native testing so far on an M1 MacBook Air. See the Mac setup notes for permissions, tested scope and the remaining differences.
Want to try it?
AirWitness is still a private beta. Apply for tester access, or ask Tom a question about the work you would like to try it on. Access and available builds depend on the current test program; this is not a public download or a promise of immediate Mac access.
If you're already invited, use the build and installation instructions supplied to you. Your signed AirWitness Avalonia license needs to include the platform you're using. One license file can cover Windows and Mac, and a valid file can be loaded offline. Legacy AirWitness licenses are a separate edition.
Start with a project, add a session, and pick one problem to investigate. Save the project before sharing it. Project archives, Scratch Pad notes and exported reports are not encrypted, so review their contents before handing them over.
Go a little deeper
AirWitness helps you make a clearer case for what is happening—and what to try next.