NS Scout on Android

An NS Scout is a small ESP32 board running open source firmware. It listens to Wi-Fi and sends what it hears to Network Survey over Bluetooth. The iPhone app gets all of its Wi-Fi from a Scout. On Android a Scout is optional: the phone scans Wi-Fi on its own, and a Scout can take over as the Wi-Fi radio when you want more than the phone’s scans give you.

The boards, the one-time software install and the Scout’s light patterns are on the NS Scout page. This section of the manual covers using a Scout with the Android app.

What a Scout adds

The NS Scout page in the app sums it up as “A small add-on board that listens to Wi-Fi for this app”:

No scan limit. It listens to Wi-Fi continuously during a survey or on a live Wi-Fi screen, without Android’s scan throttling.
More detail per access point. Security details (key management and the pairwise and group ciphers), noise and signal-to-noise ratio, the beacon interval, supported rates, and how busy the access point is (its station count and channel use, when the access point reports them).
Wi-Fi clients. The phones, laptops and other devices around you, the access points they talk to, and the network names they look for. See Wi-Fi clients.
Raw frames. 802.11 frames saved as pcapng files you can open in Wireshark. See Raw frames.

A Scout hears 2.4 GHz, and 5 GHz on boards with the ESP32-C5 chip. None of the supported chips can tune to 6 GHz, so while Wi-Fi comes from a Scout, 6 GHz networks are not recorded. If 6 GHz matters for a survey, use the phone’s Wi-Fi for it.

Wi-Fi comes from your Scout or this phone, never both

The NS Scout page has a Wi-Fi comes from choice with two options: your Scout (shown by its name, like NS-5CFA) and This phone. Under it the app says: “Wi-Fi never comes from both. Bluetooth, cellular and GNSS always come from this phone.”

Pairing a Scout selects it as the Wi-Fi source. You can switch back to This phone at any time before a survey starts, and the Survey tab offers Use NS-5CFA to switch back.
While the Scout is the source, the phone’s own Wi-Fi scanner does not run. The phone’s Wi-Fi being off doesn’t matter then, but Bluetooth must stay on, because that is how the phone reaches the Scout.
A survey keeps one Wi-Fi source from start to finish, so the choice is locked while a survey records: “A survey uses one Wi-Fi source from start to finish. Stop the survey to switch to phone Wi-Fi.” with a Stop survey button.
If the Scout drops out during a survey, Wi-Fi is not recorded until it is back, and the Survey tab and the notification say so. The app never switches to the phone’s Wi-Fi on its own, so one survey never mixes the two.
The Scout firmware can also report Bluetooth LE devices, but the Android app does not ask for them. Bluetooth records always come from the phone, and every record’s location comes from the phone’s location fixes.
The phone uses one Scout at a time.

It only listens

In the app’s words: “It only listens. It never transmits Wi-Fi, and it talks to this phone over Bluetooth.” The Scout firmware never sends Wi-Fi frames: no probe requests, no active scans, no joining networks. The only thing it transmits is Bluetooth, to advertise itself and to talk to your phone.

On the phone side, a Scout is the one Bluetooth device Network Survey pairs with and connects to. The Bluetooth record type still only listens to what nearby devices broadcast.

What you need

A supported ESP32 board. The ESP32-C5-DevKitC-1 is recommended, since the ESP32-C5 is the only supported chip that hears 5 GHz. ESP32-C6, S3 and C3 boards work for 2.4 GHz. See What you need for the full list.
A computer with Chrome or Edge and a USB data cable, once, to install the Scout software.
USB power or a power bank for the Scout while you survey.
On the phone: Bluetooth on, and the Nearby devices permission (Android 12 and later) or the location permission (Android 11 and lower), which Android requires to find Bluetooth devices.

Where to find it

More > Hardware > NS Scout. Before you pair one, the row reads “Optional board for more Wi-Fi detail”. After that it shows the Scout’s name and status, like “NS-5CFA · Connected”.
The Wi-Fi scan throttling notice adds “An NS Scout, a small add-on board, scans Wi-Fi without Android’s limit.” with About NS Scout, while no Scout is paired.
Once a Scout is paired, the Survey tab has a Scout row. See Surveying with a Scout.

Until you pair a Scout, nothing else in the app changes: the Survey tab, Signals, Settings and the notification look the same as without one.

Managed phones

An organization can hide NS Scout with the managed configuration key allow_ns_scout. When it is false, the NS Scout row and every Scout screen are hidden and Wi-Fi comes from the phone. The two Scout record types are also off on a managed phone unless the organization names them. See Managed configuration (MDM).