Why use Floor Planner?

Getting WiFi right isn’t just about picking the right access points, it's also about how your building itself affects coverage. Walls, rooms, and materials like brick, concrete, or glass can all weaken signals in different ways. If those factors aren’t planned for, you can end up with weak spots or inconsistent performance. The Floor Plan feature helps take out the guesswork by letting you preview how your access points will cover your space before installing any hardware. That way, you can see where coverage will be strongest, spotty areas that may need more attention, and design a setup that truly fits your environment.

Where to find the Floor Plan feature

The Floor Plan tool is available only in the Cloud Controller (it’s not accessible on Control or self-hosted controllers at this time). To open it, just click the site management drop-down next to your profile icon and scroll down until you see Floor Plan.

Floor Plan initial setup

1. Upon opening Floor Plan, you will be prompted to upload a building schematic and also give it a name. This is the floor you will be starting out with. We do recommend using the PDF format, as walls can be automatically identified using PDF Layers (If incorporated), which will allow you to automatically assign the material used for specific walls and windows. Other file formats may be supported, but will not have the Import Wall feature.
2. Next, you will need to set the scale for the project. This is possible by clicking on the icon on the bottom left of the screen. It will have you draw a line on the schematic, which will then have you specify the length of that line drawn in feet or meters.

3. After you set the scale of the floor, you can now upload more floors by clicking on the floor drop-down list at the top left of the screen. Notice that the scale for each floor is unique to each floor.

Drawing walls and simulating access point and switch locations

Now for the fun part. Click on the Draw Walls in the navigation bar above, here is where it gives you the option to Draw Walls or Import Walls. If your PDF is utilizing Layers, importing walls will allow you to assign material and thicknesses to the walls/windows assigned to that entire layer. Each wall material has its own signal attenuation factor, the higher the number in dB - the more attenuated (suppressed) the signal will be (2.4 GHz listed in orange, 5 GHz listed in purple). Keep in mind that – for the same signal strength – 5 GHz signals travel half as far as 2.4 GHz signals, which is expected due to the higher frequency of 5 GHz. The higher the frequency, the more suppressed the signal will be traveling through anything, including open air. Conversely, the lower the frequency, the signal will be less suppressed traveling through anything, including open air. The trade-off is higher frequencies = faster speed (due to much more spectrum available), but less range. Lower frequencies = more range, less speed.

If you are not using the Layers, you will need to draw the walls on the floor manually. After you define the thickness and click on the material of the wall you want to place down, you can now draw the wall on the schematic. Proceed with drawing the rest of the walls where it’s needed.

Now, you can start placing down access points and switches into the project by clicking on the drop-down for Add Device. There you will be able to drag in devices on your current site from Current Devices or use devices that you have yet to install in Planned Devices. 

As you place the APs down, you can rotate and simulate wall and ceiling mounting by simply clicking on the device, as demonstrated below.

Notice how the signals propagate throughout the floor and walls. You can also toggle between 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz on the bottom-right of the screen. In the same place, you can also see signal attenuation scale. If you hover around your mouse on the floor, a dot will appear on the scale showing what the signal will approximately look like in that specific area. Red being the weakest signal, green being the strongest. 

If you wish to adjust transmit power on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz for individual APs in dBm (please refer to the specific APs spec sheet to determine max dBm per radio), simply click on the AP and click on the  icon to do so. There, you are also able to name the AP, if you like.

Finishing up the Floor Plan

As you add APs and switches, the Products tab at the top of the screen will automatically keep track of every device in your project. You can also include additional devices that aren’t placed in the floor plan if you’d like them added to the list.

When you’re done, just click Send order to receive an email summary of all the devices you’ll need. Once you have that list, feel free to reach out to sales@alta.inc or your preferred distributor, and they’ll be happy to help you with your order.

Exporting the Floor Plan as a PDF

You are also able to export the floor plan as a PDF by clicking on the export button on the navigation bar above. Which will then allow you to adjust the output parameters before downloading it to your device.

Site Survey

While the Floor Planner tool can give you a good estimation of WiFi coverage for your project, it is always important to perform a site survey of your project after the network has been installed. A good rule-of-thumb is to ensure that you can achieve a -65 dBm signal anywhere in your project that you care about WiFi.

If you have extra walls, cubicles, furniture, obstacles, and plants, these may not have been accounted for during your planning, and you may need to adjust the location and/or number of WiFi access points in your final project to achieve acceptable signal strength everywhere.