Help

How WiAware works, feature by feature. For WiAware 1.0 on macOS 15 or later.

Getting started

1. Download WiAware, open the disk image and drag WiAware to your Applications folder.
2. Open it. A check mark appears in your menu bar, and a short welcome explains the three optional permissions: alerts, the WiFi name, and Local Network access for the router check.
3. That's it. WiAware checks your connection every half minute from now on. Click the mark whenever you want to know how things stand.

The mark in the menu bar

One mark, nothing beside it. Its shape tells you the state, so you don't have to rely on color:

• Whole wave, green: good for calls.
• Broken wave, amber: calls may stutter. Open the menu to see why.
• A dot, red: calls won't work. You're offline, or the internet isn't answering.
• Dim: WiAware is still checking, or alerts are paused and all is well.

In Settings → General you can keep the mark black or white until something needs attention, or hide it and open WiAware with a keyboard shortcut instead.

The menu

Click the mark. The menu fits on one screen and reads top to bottom:

• The answer: "Good for calls", "Calls may stutter" or "Not good for calls", with the network you're on.
• The path: WiFi → Router → Internet, each with its reading. The slow part is marked, so you know whether to move closer to the router, restart it, or wait for your provider.
• One card for the moment: the call you're on, the one about to start, or the one that just ended.
• Network Details, All Meetings, the Timeline and Settings a click away.

Opening the menu checks the connection again, so what you see is current. Press ⌘R to check once more.

Network Details shows the WiFi (signal, security, which access point you're on), the connection (IP, router, internet latency and loss, DNS, VPN) and, during calls or while the page is open, the apps using your connection right now.

Test and Full Test

Test runs about ten seconds of checks against your router and the internet and answers in call terms: ready, may stutter, or not good, with the latency, jitter, loss and signal it measured.

Full Test uses macOS's own speed test to measure download, upload and how the connection holds up while busy, and says whether that's enough for HD video calls. It moves up to a few hundred MB, so WiAware asks first and never runs it during a call.

Alerts

WiAware sends a notification when something would hurt a call, and stays quiet otherwise. Each one can be turned off in Settings → Alerts:

• Connection lost and back online, with how long you were offline.
• Unstable connection, when it keeps dropping or the latency keeps spiking.
• Weak WiFi signal, below a level you choose (–70 dBm by default; most calls need more than that).
• Network changed, when your Mac switches networks or access points.
• Open WiFi, when you join a network without a password.

Brief blips, and the moments while your Mac switches network or wakes up, are waited out so alerts stay rare. Send yourself a Test alert from Settings → Alerts to see what one looks like.

Quiet when you want

The bell in the menu pauses alerts for an hour, until tomorrow, or until your next call ends. Settings → Alerts can also limit connection alerts to calls only.

Meetings

Turn on Show meetings from my calendar in Settings → Calls, and allow Calendar access when macOS asks. From then on:

• The menu shows your next meeting as it gets close, with a Join button for Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Webex, FaceTime and other links in the invitation.
• All Meetings lists today and tomorrow, with a week strip to look ahead.
• A reminder comes five minutes before each call, with Join and whether your connection is ready.

Choose which calendars and which kinds of events to show under Settings → Calls → Events and calendars. Your events stay on your Mac.

Meeting Mode

While you're on a call, WiAware checks every few seconds instead of every half minute, and warns sooner. Meeting Mode comes on by itself when:

• you press Join on a meeting, or a meeting in your calendar starts;
• WiAware notices a call that isn't in your calendar, from the microphone or camera in use (a Slack huddle, a FaceTime call);
• one of the call apps you choose in Settings → Calls → Call apps is open.

For a call WiAware can't see, like a phone call, turn it on by hand from Settings → Calls, with the keyboard shortcut, or by asking Siri.

During and before a call

What's eating your call

When another app fills your upload during a call, WiAware says so before the call stutters, and names the app: "Upload is full. Dropbox is using most of your upload." Network Details lists the apps using the connection right now.

Call summaries

After each call, a short note on how your connection held up: how long it ran, whether it dropped, and where you were. The Timeline keeps a report you can share with IT or your internet provider.

The check before a call

Five minutes before a call in your calendar, WiAware checks your connection and warns you if it isn't ready, while there's still time to move closer to the router or plug in.

Preferred networks

Mark the networks you want for calls on their page in Settings → Networks. Before a call, if you're on another network and a preferred one is in range, WiAware tells you. It can also switch for you (marked Beta, off by default: macOS doesn't always allow it).

Hide other apps

Marked Beta and off by default. As a call starts, everything but the call's app is hidden, and the apps you pick are quit. The hidden ones come back when the call ends.

The Timeline

Open it from the menu or with ⌘T. The Timeline keeps 7 days of drops, network changes, calls and tests on your Mac, under a Today overview with the day's drops, downtime, calls and data used.

Search it, export it as CSV, or share a call's report from its row. Nothing in it ever leaves your Mac unless you export it.

Networks

Settings → Networks lists the networks your Mac has used in the last 7 days, each with a reliability rating and the data it used this week. Ethernet gets a row of its own, for every cable, with how it held up and what went over it. A WiFi network's page lets you:

• mark it as preferred for calls;
• trust it, so WiAware doesn't warn that it's open;
• give it its own weak-signal level, for a network that's always a little weak or one you need to be strong;
• name its access points, like "Upstairs" or "Office", so the Timeline says where you moved instead of showing addresses.

Shortcuts and Siri

Record keyboard shortcuts in Settings → Shortcuts to show WiAware, join the next call, open your meetings and turn Meeting Mode on or off. They work from any app.

WiAware's actions also appear in the Shortcuts app and Siri, with no setup: Is My Connection Good for a Call?, Join Next Call, Show Meetings, Turn On and Turn Off Meeting Mode, Pause and Resume WiAware Alerts. Try "Ask WiAware if my connection is good for a call."

Permissions

Every permission is optional. Each only adds something, and WiAware says what, when it asks.

• Notifications: lets alerts and reminders through.
• Location: macOS shares WiFi network names only with apps that have Location access. WiAware never reads or stores your location. Without it, the network is shown as "WiFi" and alerts about network changes can't tell networks apart.
• Local Network: lets WiAware reach your router, to tell whether the router is the slow part.
• Calendar: only if you turn on meetings. Reads today's and tomorrow's events; they stay on your Mac.
• Automation: asked only if you choose apps to quit during calls.

Change any of them later under System Settings → Privacy & Security. Settings → Privacy in WiAware lists what it keeps, what it reads, and every address it connects to.

Trial and license

Every feature works free for 14 days. After that, WiAware keeps checking your connection, so the mark and Test still work, and a license brings back alerts, Meeting Mode, your meetings and the Timeline.

A license is a one-time purchase of $14.99 and works on 2 Macs. Your key arrives by email from Dodo Payments, our reseller, right after you buy.

Activate

1. Open WiAware and choose Settings → License.
2. Paste the key from your email and click Activate.

Move to another Mac

Install WiAware on the new Mac and activate the same key. To free a slot, open Settings → License on a Mac you no longer use and click Remove License.

Reinstalling

The day your trial started and your license are kept in your Mac's Keychain, so deleting WiAware and installing it again doesn't start the trial over, and your license is still there.

A refund within 14 days is yours for the asking: see Refunds.

Troubleshooting

The mark isn't in the menu bar

macOS hides menu bar icons that don't fit, most often beside the camera notch. Open WiAware again from Spotlight or the Finder and it opens as a panel. To make room, quit a menu bar app you don't need. You can also give WiAware a keyboard shortcut in Settings → Shortcuts and hide the mark on purpose.

It says "WiFi" instead of the network's name

Allow Location access: Settings → General → WiFi Network Name, or System Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services.

The router shows no reading

Allow Local Network access under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network. Some routers ignore the check; WiAware then says so rather than blaming the router.

No alerts arrive

Check that notifications are allowed for WiAware in System Settings → Notifications, that alerts aren't paused (the bell in the menu), and that a Focus mode isn't holding them back.

My key is refused

Paste the key rather than typing it. If it says the key is already on 2 Macs, remove it from one of them first. If it says the key isn't active, the purchase was refunded. Anything else, write to us with your order number.

Feedback

Open Settings → Help and Feedback in WiAware to report a problem, suggest an idea or ask a question. The report opens in your own mail app, with a list of what WiAware adds about itself and your Mac shown first, so you see every word before it's sent. Or write to feedback@wiaware.com.