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Ekahau Sidekick™, the First All-in-One Wi-Fi Site Survey Device released! |
September 07, 2017
Wearable Wi-Fi Diagnostics and Measurement Tool Redefines How
Enterprise Wireless Networks Are Designed
Ekahau, the global leader in Wi-Fi network design solutions, today announced
the launch and general availability of its new Ekahau Sidekick™ site survey
device. Ekahau Sidekick™ is a comprehensive wireless design device that allows
for faster measurement of wireless networks and provides best-in-class Wi-Fi
spectrum analysis.

Wi-Fi is mission-critical to businesses of all sizes as over 55%1 of Internet
traffic is generated over Wi-Fi today and site surveys are at the core of a
successful network design. A site survey walk-through is required to
validate any enterprise Wi-Fi network to ensure sufficient coverage and
performance and minimal interference. As an all-in-one measurement device,
Ekahau Sidekick ™ dramatically streamlines the site survey process by replacing
and outperforming the previously-used USB hubs providing greater reliability,
accuracy and convenience. It also makes the site survey process faster with
state-of-the-art radios, meaning it takes significantly less time for the
wireless engineer to measure the wireless at the site.
“Ekahau Sidekick™ was built with one goal in mind and that was to make
measuring high-quality Wi-Fi networks faster, more precise and above all,
easier. After two years of development with invaluable input from the Wi-Fi
community and a ton of fine-tuning, we feel we’ve accomplished it. Sidekick will
revolutionize site surveys and fundamentally change the way businesses design
and manage their wireless networks,” said Jussi Kiviniemi, Senior Vice President
at Ekahau.
What type of customers will benefit from using Ekahau Sidekick™?
- System integrators who design and maintain networks for their customers
- Enterprise network engineers across all business types who typically
maintain and expand their existing wireless networks
Ekahau Sidekick™ is a battery-powered device that provides over eight hours
of Wi-Fi site survey time. Ekahau Sidekick™ is shipped with messenger-style
carrying strap and enables multiple ways of carrying it for convenience and ease
of use.

The Ekahau Sidekick™ device is connected to a laptop or tablet running Ekahau
Site Survey & Planner, Ekahau’s flagship Wi-Fi design software. The
measurement data of the wireless local area network (WLAN) collected during a
site survey includes Wi-Fi signal strength, noise, co-channel interference,
network configuration information, and comprehensive spectrum analysis. The
measurement data is then visualized as real-time graphs and heat maps of Wi-Fi
network coverage and performance.
“Users, devices, and applications perform exponentially better on properly
designed and maintained Wi-Fi networks, saving businesses time and money in the
new era of the digital platform.” said Olga Yashkova, Program Manager, Frost and
Sullivan. “Ekahau is the global leader in providing customer value for wireless
design, and Ekahau Sidekick™ now further extends Ekahau’s portfolio and
value-proposition to businesses and system integrators alike. We believe this
could be a game-changer”. Ekahau Sidekick™ houses two enterprise-grade
802.11ac adapters previously only seen in enterprise Wi-Fi access points. It
also includes an ultra-high-resolution spectrum analyzer capable of up to 20
sweeps per second on both 2.4 and 5GHz bands – simultaneously. This makes the
spectrum analyzer 4- 10 times faster than other Wi-Fi spectrum analyzers out in
the market.
“The demands on Wi-Fi networks are increasing as it is becoming the de-facto
carrier for a range of IoT applications, cellular data offloading and Wi-Fi
calling. These mission-critical workloads will push the boundaries for Wi-Fi
networks, and thus they must be designed and deployed with increased precision.
Ekahau Sidekick™ is the pioneering new standard for measuring and validating
wireless networks,” said Mika Hakala, CEO of Ekahau.
The Ekahau Sidekick™ hardware is available for order today from Ekahau and
its global partner network. Ekahau Sidekick™ works with the Ekahau Site Survey
(ESS) software application. Learn more about
Ekahau Sidekick™
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