// CUSTOM DASHBOARDS · BUSINESS WI-FI

Custom Wi-Fi & mesh dashboards, built around your actual faults

Your controller shows you coverage. We build you the screen that shows channel utilisation, PoE headroom and noise floor over time — the numbers that actually explain why a floor with perfect signal is unusable at eleven in the morning.

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// LIVE DEMO · SAMPLE DATA · SWIPE OR USE THE ARROWS

Three screens, built around the faults

Eighteen access points through a working day. Watch the floor fill, then swipe to see exactly why one access point goes red while its signal stays perfect.

08:00Estate
0clients
0%worst channel
0WPoE draw
0needs a look
clients on site worst channel utilisation where people start complaining

2.4GHz has three non-overlapping channels. Here is who is using them.

The pale bars are radios we do not own — vehicles, neighbours, equipment nobody thinks of as a radio. You cannot channel-plan around them, only around each other. This is what a coverage map cannot show you.

Switch PoE budget — the number that decides whether an upgrade is possible.

drawing now 0W after an all-R550 upgrade 337W a 370W switch ceiling

Eighteen access points at 802.3at want roughly 337 W. That sits inside a 370 W switch and outside a 195 W one — which is why the switch, not the access point, is usually the real purchase.

Everything is green. Nobody has arrived yet.

Why coverage maps keep letting people down

Every wireless controller draws you a coverage map, because coverage is easy to measure, easy to colour in, and reassuring to look at. Green everywhere, job done.

The trouble is that coverage is often not the fault. A floor can have flawless signal in every corner and still be unusable at eleven in the morning, because the channel is full — of your own access points talking over each other, of the building next door, or of equipment nobody thought of as a radio at all.

Signal strength and usability look identical on a coverage map. That is the whole problem, and it is why so many estates get replaced without anything getting better.

What we put on the screen instead

What we showWhy it earns its place
Channel utilisation over timeA strong predictor of complaints, and one that is often missing. It tells you the air is full an hour before anyone reports it.
PoE draw against switch budgetShows headroom before you add the camera, the door controller or the next access point — rather than discovering the ceiling during a trading day.
Noise floor, and how it movesIf interference rises and falls with what is in the building, that is a fact you can act on rather than a theory you can argue about.
Clients per AP, not just totalsTwo access points holding everything while sixteen idle is a design problem, and invisible in a site-wide number.
Reboots and uptime per unitAn access point that restarts more than its neighbours is telling you something — usually power, occasionally heat.
Multi-site fleet viewEvery branch on one screen, worst-first, so the estate tells you where to look instead of waiting for someone to ring.

None of it is exotic. It is simply the set of numbers an engineer actually asks for when diagnosing a floor — put on one screen, kept over time, and made to explain itself.

// WHAT WE CAN CONNECT

If it publishes its data, it can go on the screen

Not a shopping list — a starting point. Each of these says what it gives you and where the catch is, because the catch is the bit that decides whether it is worth doing.

Solar & battery

Victron, and most inverters that publish an API or Modbus.

Worth knowing: We run our own business off a Victron system, so this is the one we know best.

Your electricity supplier

Half-hourly usage and tariff data where the supplier exposes it.

Worth knowing: Coverage varies by supplier. Some publish a proper API, some publish nothing at all.

Cameras & CCTV

Live views, motion events and clips copied off-site automatically.

Worth knowing: Most systems expose a stream. Some budget cloud-only cameras deliberately do not — we check yours first.

IoT sensors

Temperature, humidity, water leaks, door contacts, freezer alarms.

Worth knowing: Anything that speaks MQTT, Zigbee, Z-Wave or a documented API. Closed proprietary hubs are the hard ones.

Network & Wi-Fi

Access points, switches, PoE draw, channel utilisation, broadband health.

Worth knowing: RUCKUS, UniFi, Aruba and most business platforms. Depends what your controller version exposes.

Vehicles & fleet

Location, mileage, fault codes and battery health from a diagnostics dongle.

Worth knowing: Via a standards-based OBD or telematics device, not by reverse-engineering a manufacturer app.

GPS & route tracking

Where it is now, the route it took, distance covered, and a geofence that shouts when something leaves an area it should not.

Worth knowing: It is not a theft tracker — it is not hidden, it runs off the battery it monitors, and no insurer recognises it. A dedicated tracker still owns that job.

Pet & asset trackers

The dog, the trailer, the tools — on the same map and the same alarm rules as everything else.

Worth knowing: Depends entirely on the tracker. Some publish their data properly; plenty of consumer collars keep it locked inside their own app. We check yours before promising anything.

Slack & Teams

Alerts land where your team already is, instead of another app nobody opens.

Worth knowing: We use this ourselves — every booking and job on our own system pings Slack.

Backups & PCs

Whether last night actually ran, disk health, updates, antivirus state.

Worth knowing: Already built — this is what 365 PC Manager reports into your portal.

Machines & production

Run hours, output counts, downtime and utilisation from PLCs or line controllers.

Worth knowing: Where the equipment publishes it. Older machines may need a sensor retrofit rather than software.

Weather

Forecast for your postcode, tied to whatever it should influence.

Worth knowing: Chosen per site — the point is what it drives, not the forecast itself.

Same idea, different building

HomeCameras, power, broadband, backups, the freezer in the garage.
Business premisesWi-Fi estate, PoE headroom, machines, alarms, multi-site.
BoatBatteries, bilge, shore power, position — the things that matter when you are not aboard.
CampervanLeisure battery, solar, water, fridge, and whether it started this morning.
Holiday homeHeating, damp, leaks and arrivals, from two hundred miles away.

How this actually works. You can arrange the screen yourself — there is a dashboard studio in the 365 portal, free to join, where you drag the tiles about and save the layout to your account. What you do not have to do is the wiring. Tell us what you have and what you want to see, and we connect it. If something on your list cannot be read, we tell you that before you have spent anything, because finding out afterwards is how these projects go wrong.

We have done this before, on something harder

This is not a new idea for us. We build custom Victron dashboards for off-grid power systems worldwide — and we run our own business off one, because our office is a van. Those dashboards do for solar and battery exactly what this does for wireless: take a platform that shows you what it was designed to show, and add the numbers the owner actually needs.

You can see the thinking that sits behind this applied to a real wireless problem in our R510 field playbook — a step-by-step diagnosis of an eighteen access point estate, written for an IT manager and given away in full.

You can have a go at this today, free

There is a dashboard studio in the 365 portal. Drag the tiles where you want them, take off what you do not care about, save the layout to your account. Joining is free and takes about twenty seconds, and you can design a screen for your own site and send it to us to be priced.

Free 365 memberOn 365 Business SupportA bespoke estate dashboard
CostFree to joinFrom £24.38 a month per computerQuoted per site
What is actually liveNothing — every tile is a clearly marked sampleThe estate we already manage: every computer in the business on one line, Windows versions and pending restarts, backups, antivirus, your visits and written reportsYour wireless controller, switches, PoE headroom, servers, sensors, machines — whatever publishes its data
Alerts into Slack or TeamsShown as a sampleShown as a sampleYes, wired to your own thresholds
WhereIn your portal, on any deviceIts own hosted address, or a screen on the wall

The bit we will not blur. In the portal every tile says on its face whether it is live — reading your own account — or a sample with made-up numbers. Your access points do not appear in there by magic. Reading your controller is the bespoke build below, and it starts with us checking what your platform and firmware actually expose.

How the bespoke build works, and what it costs

  1. We check we can read your data. First conversation, before anything is promised. Some platforms are generous, some are not, and we will tell you which yours is.
  2. We agree what belongs on the screen. Your problems, not a template. A dashboard that shows everything shows nothing.
  3. We build it and you use it for a fortnight. Real data, real days. That is when you find out whether it answers the question you actually had.
  4. We adjust it. Everyone changes something after two weeks of looking at their own numbers. That is the point.

Cost is quoted per site. We publish no price for this, because a two-access-point office and an eighteen access point sales floor are not the same job, and a number on a web page would be a made-up one. It is not a licence and there is no per-access-point fee.

And the honest caveat, which is the same one on everything else we write: if a fortnight of your own data shows the estate is fine and the switches are the constraint, that is what the dashboard will tell you — and you will have saved considerably more than it cost.

// GOOD QUESTIONS

Frequently asked

What does a custom Wi-Fi dashboard show that my controller doesn't?

Vendor controllers are built around coverage, because coverage is easy to draw and looks reassuring. What they rarely put on one screen is channel utilisation, PoE headroom, noise floor and client counts moving together over time. That combination is what explains a floor that is green everywhere and unusable at eleven in the morning.

Do you replace my existing controller?

No. We read from what you already have and present it properly. Your controller stays exactly where it is, doing its job - we are adding a view, not another system to manage, and nothing we build changes how your wireless runs.

Will this work with RUCKUS, UniFi, Aruba or Meraki?

It depends on what your platform exposes and how, which is the first thing we check and the first thing we would tell you if the answer were no. Most business wireless platforms offer an API or an export; some are far more generous than others. We will not promise a build before we have confirmed we can read your data.

What does it cost?

It is quoted per site, because a two-access-point office and an eighteen-access-point sales floor across two acres are not the same job. We publish no price for this work - we would rather give you a real number after seeing what you have than a fake one on a web page.

Do you only do this for customers in Dorset?

No. Dashboards are built and delivered remotely, so this is a service we provide anywhere - the same way our custom Victron dashboards run for customers well outside the UK. On-site survey work is Dorset and the surrounding counties.

Why would I want this rather than just replacing the access points?

Because replacing the access points is the expensive way to find out what was wrong. A dashboard that shows channel utilisation and PoE headroom over a fortnight will usually tell you whether new hardware would help at all - and quite often the honest answer is that it would not.

Is anything included with a support plan?

Yes. Every 365 member gets the dashboard studio in the portal to arrange and save, and on 365 Business Support the tiles covering the estate we already manage go live on your own account - every computer in the business on one line, Windows versions and pending restarts, backups, antivirus, your visits and reports. Reading your wireless controller, switches or machines is the bespoke build, quoted per site, because it needs someone to check what your platform actually exposes first.

Can you connect it to my electricity supplier?

Where the supplier exposes the data, yes - half-hourly usage and tariff information can sit alongside your solar and battery so you can see what you are actually buying and when. Coverage varies a great deal by supplier: some publish a proper API, others publish nothing. We check yours before promising anything.

Can alerts go to Slack or Teams instead of another app?

Yes, and we would usually recommend it. An alert that lands where your team already is gets read; an alert in a fourteenth app does not. We do this on our own systems - every booking and completed job on our internal setup pings Slack.

Can you read data from vehicles?

From a standards-based diagnostics or telematics device, yes - location, mileage, fuel economy, fault codes and battery health. We work from documented interfaces rather than by reverse-engineering a manufacturer's app, because anything built that way breaks the next time they update it.

Can I see where the van is, and get told if it moves?

Yes - live position, the route it took, the miles it covered, and geofences you draw yourself so the dashboard raises an alarm when something leaves an area, or when its signal drops. On a Victron system the GPS can come from the GX itself; on a vehicle it comes from a diagnostics or telematics device. Credit where it is due: Victron's own VRM portal already does geofencing and keeps a position history. What we add is your own screen, several vehicles on one map, and route history that does not expire after six months. It is not a theft tracker, and we will not sell it as one: it is not concealed, it runs off the battery bank it is watching, and no insurer recognises it.

Can I design my own dashboard and save layouts?

Yes - there is a dashboard studio in the 365 portal, and it is free to join and play with. Drag the tiles where you want them, take off what you do not care about, save the layout to your account and it follows you to any device. Being precise about what is real in it: on a 365 support plan the tiles about the computers we look after read your own account, and every other tile is clearly marked as a sample of what we could connect. Making one of those samples real - your cameras, your solar, your sensors - is still a build we do for you, because it needs someone to check what your equipment actually publishes first.

Does it work for a boat, a campervan or a holiday home?

Those are some of the best uses for it, because they are the buildings you are not standing in. Batteries and bilge on a boat, leisure power and whether it started this morning on a campervan, heating and damp and leaks on a holiday home two hundred miles away.

What if something I want cannot be connected?

We tell you before you have spent anything. Some equipment simply does not publish its data, and some budget cloud-only cameras deliberately prevent anyone else reading them. Finding that out afterwards is how these projects go wrong, so we check first.

Talk it through — no visit, no obligation

Tell us what platform you run and what the complaint is, and we will tell you honestly whether a dashboard would help. If it would not, we will say so.

01202 775566 · help@365techies.co.uk · MON–FRI 9AM–5PM