Hamina, bitches…

So, how long HAS it been since a new WLAN design tool hit the market? Arguably, this has been a space long-dominated by de facto monopoly. And sure, most of us in WLAN Land created and supported the monopoly. It was working for everyone. But then circumstances changed. Companies were bought. People changed. And people have a way of making things great, or laying waste to years-cultivated credibility. Such is life.

But wait- I was talking about WLAN design tools. There’s a new one out there, you realize… Now, I know that you know that I know that a whole bunch of us already know about Hamina. It’s really a rather small community of wireless professionals, and people talk to each other. They share. And Hamina is definitely a hot topic right now.

Beyond just being weary of what an incumbent tool vendor might be doing under new management, I think many of us are ready for a more lightweight design experience. Lighter on the wallet, lighter on the hardware required to run the tool, and lighter on the fable that Wi-Fi design is something akin to rocket science that requires razor precision. After a while, some stories start to collapse under their own weight. That’s not to say existing tools aren’t still effective, but paying ever more to use to use them is in no way a privilege. The notion of who is working for who sometimes gets blurred,

So why look at Hamina? To start with, it is feature-packed for WLAN design, on par with any leading tool. It’s in version 1.0 currently, and feels very intuitive to use. Everything you’d expect to see for 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz are there. Bring in the CAD files if you’d like or do your walls and such manually. You can model your designs, and then model what a client (using various device types) would experience in the environment as they move around. It works well in my experience, so far as a design tool.

Differentiators? Hamina is browser-based. Run it on Windows, run it on Mac without installing software. Run it on a locked down corporate machine. And for me at least, the 12-month cost for the WLAN-only version is a fraction of what the competitor charges just for renewal after purchase. Add in 4G/5G features, and the cost is still quite comfortable for the higher tier. And it all seems to work well in my experienced opinion- even in the early versions. There are other niceties in the mix that I may or may not personally use- BLE and LoRaWAN planning, planning for cable runs and network switches and such.

Take a look at Hamina, says I.

Hamina, bitches!