- 2.4 and 5 GHz
- separate maps for each band, plus a combined map
- 90 ms
- interface blocking when turning on the map of a two-storey house, previously 1,300 ms
- 11
- ready-made building templates, from a studio flat to a three-storey terraced house
- 0
- server-side calculations: the map is computed on the customer’s computer
What is the WiFi planner and why does an operator need it?
The planner is a browser tool in which a customer draws the floor plan of a house or flat, places the operator’s devices and checks where the signal will be good and where weak. The operator receives a project with a report, not a sentence like “WiFi doesn’t reach the bedroom”.
The planner is built into eBOK and opens from its menu, but it is a standalone tool: one file, no build step and no calculation server.
How does the planner calculate WiFi coverage?
Rays are cast from every device, and the signal weakens with distance and at every obstacle. Walls, doors and windows have a material and an attenuation in decibels, separately for 2.4 and 5 GHz. The result is a coloured map and the percentage of floor area with a signal above the stable-operation threshold (−70 dBm).
It is a simplified model for planning and comparing variants, not a measurement. The planner says so in its footer, because real coverage also depends on furniture, interference and the neighbours’ networks.
- An opening replaces a wall: a metal door in a partition wall counts as a door, not as a thin wall.
- Two walls at one point form a corner: the thicker one counts, not the sum.
- A 40 cm penumbra at obstacle edges models wave diffraction; the sharpest edge on the map dropped from 19.1 to 9.9 dB.
- A staircase is a second signal path between floors (6 dB per pass), not a discount: what matters is whether both ends of the path are close to the staircase.
What can you draw in the planner?
Everything that affects the signal and cabling in a typical home.
- Walls with a material (from partition walls to reinforced concrete and prefabricated slab), rooms with floor area, doors, windows, glass and stairs.
- Several storeys in one project; the templates have up to three.
- Devices from the operator’s catalogue: a fibre router, Mesh access points and TV decoders. The operator edits the catalogue in the panel.
- Ethernet cables with passages between floors: a floor penetration is marked in a separate colour and parallel routes spread out onto separate tracks.
- An automatically calculated suggestion for access point placement.
- Undo and redo of every action, and a right-click menu with six variants depending on the clicked element.
- Control with a mouse or touch, and a separate layout for a phone rotated to landscape.
What do the customer and the operator get at the end?
The customer gets a report with the coverage percentage and recommendations, and an export to PDF, PNG or a project file to load later. The operator gets the project as a request from a specific, logged-in customer.
- A PDF report with Polish characters: we draw the methodology page on a canvas because the PDF library’s built-in font has no Polish letters.
- The export shows a clean floor plan: a selected element does not end up in the document.
- A request with the whole plan lands in the admin panel, where an employee opens it back in the planner; optionally a Redmine task is created too.
- A project without a router will not be sent: the planner blocks this in two places and the report then opens with a red warning.
How did we make it fast?
The coverage map is the planner’s heaviest operation, so it is computed in a separate thread (a Web Worker), and on first activation a quick draft appears first. Interface blocking when turning on the map of a two-storey house dropped from about 1,300 to about 90 ms, and the calculations themselves became 2.87 times faster.
After a second signal path through the staircase was added there were more calculations, so we reduced them without changing the result: the first segment computed once per device, constant parts of the equation folded into one number, the list of staircases cached. Dragging a device recomputes the map in about 68 ms.
How do we check that the planner’s numbers are true?
We compare the planner’s result with an independent calculation: the coverage from the map must match a manual calculation to the percent in every band, and the worker calculates identically to the main thread. One shared formula also computes the floor area in the report and in the panel.
An example from the release notes: the report used to calculate floor area as a bounding rectangle around the walls, so for an L-shaped house it showed 120 m² instead of 92 m². Now the report and the panel use one calculation.
The eBOK portal and the WiFi planner are available only to logged-in customers of the operator, so we do not publish their views. We show the working version in a meeting.
Frequently asked questions
Can the WiFi planner be ordered for another operator?
Yes. We adapt the device catalogue, colours and rules to the operator’s offer; the rest of the tool is the same.
Does the WiFi planner need installation?
No. It runs in a browser, with a mouse or touch, also on a phone. It is a single file with no build step.
How accurate is the WiFi coverage map?
It is a simplified model for planning and comparing device placement variants. It does not replace a measurement, because real coverage also depends on furniture, interference and the neighbours’ networks.
Does the home plan reach the operator without the customer knowing?
No. The map is computed on the customer’s computer, and only the customer sends the project, with the “Send to SKYNET” button, while logged in to eBOK.
How much does a WiFi planner for an operator cost?
It depends on scope: the same tool with your device catalogue, or an extension with new features. An initial quote is free, usually within 48 hours.