Announcing: Rampart Home

[Lael]

Originally published at: https://blog.metageek.net/2020/09/announcing-rampart-home/

With all the -ing (working, schooling, meeting, learning, chatting, connecting) you’re doing from home these days, it’s putting a lot of stress on your home WiFi network.

If you’re working from home, you need reliable WiFi to get your work done.

If you have students at home, they need to be able to attend online classes and participate in video discussions.

You still need social connections and bonding, and this might include FaceTime with long-distance relatives or winding down with Family Movie Night at the end of a stressful week.

Sometimes, you need WiFi for all 3 of these at the same time. But when you go to use your WiFi connection, you get something like this:

Does this image stress you out as much as it’s stressing me out?

Since you’re reading this blog post published by MetaGeek, you might know a bit about WiFi already.

But…what if you’re not a WiFi expert? Or even if you work in WiFi, why should you have to spend your free time at home troubleshooting it?

What if you and your household need WiFi to JUST WORK?

Yeah, us too.

The need for reliable WiFi at home (whether or not you’re a WiFi expert) has been building for a long time, but it’s been especially painful over the last few months. So we’ve been working on a tool, and developing it…

one frozen screen…

one choppy video…

one “your internet connection is unstable”…

one audio-only Google Meet…

one “buffering” Netflix icon at a time.

Today, that tool is ready, and you can use it to banish the neverending buffering icon to the annals of history. It’s called Rampart Home, and with it you can answer these 3 important questions:

1. What’s wrong with my WiFi network and how do I fix it? (WiFi Audit)
2. What’s happening right now with my home WiFi? (Real-time Stats)
3. I’m about to start my workday. Will my WiFi be able to handle whatever I throw at it today? (Daily Check)

Want to stop reading and start fixing? You can download Rampart Agent here.

Rampart Agent is a free Windows download (with Mac coming soon!), and you can jump into real-time stats and take it for a test drive right away without paying for a Rampart Home subscription.

To read more about the journey to developing Rampart Home, read MetaGeek founder Ryan Woodings’ blog post.

To find out more about Rampart Home features and pricing, visit the Rampart Home product page.

After all, you pay good money for your home WiFi. It’s about time it works like it’s supposed to, right?

[jolt]

Is Rampart Agent / Home an expansion of the wifi widget that was in beta that monitored the connection?

Though an additional sub to Inssider Office… its interesting, but starting to compete with Fing Desktop / Fingbox and their windows app, also requiring a sub (for the networking diagnostic app)

Like them both…

-J

[Lael]

Hi J,

If you’re talking about the app formerly known as inSSIDer Agent, then yes! Though it has changed names and gotten a TON of new features, inSSIDer Agent was an early prototype of what now is the Rampart Agent desktop app.

Great question about Rampart vs Fing. Here’s a reply from Ryan when someone asked this in a different thread:

Yes, Rampart Home has some similar features to Fing and Wifiman, and without a Rampart Home subscription, the Rampart Agent app also provides a lot of information without a license.

We are applying our 15 years of WiFi expertise to help people work, learn, teach, and socialize from home. Rampart Home isn’t designed for WiFi experts, it is designed for teachers and salespeople that are working from home and also have other household members working or schooling from home. This is a different goal than Fing and Wifiman, which will lead Rampart Home to diverge more and more from those apps as it continues to mature.

Let us know if you have any other questions about it!

[richardgoldstein]

I just purchased the product, but the scan does not work/run. when I look under my account for the license, it says it can’t be found. Once I eventually get it. where/how do I enter it?

Sorry if tis is the wrong place to post this, but I’m pretty frustrated.

Thanks - Richard

[casey]

Hi Richard,

You can download Rampart Agent here and your MetaGeek account credentials to log in (no license keys required!)

If you’ve already downloaded and installed Rampart Agent, can you please try signing out and back in using the [...] menu and let me know if that helps?

[richardgoldstein]

Hi Casey,

I uninstalled the prior version, installed the one from your link, but when I run it, it only reports which Wi-Fi network is connected (bottom right) and does not open. I’m confused.

Thanks - Richard

[casey]

Hi Richard,

Are you able to right click on the Rampart Agent icon in the System Tray > Show Rampart Agent?

Once open, you should now be able to sign out and back in from the ... menu.

Let me know if this helps!