Plexus

Network Site Planner — predictive WiFi, IP-camera and switch/PoE planning that runs anywhere.

Plexus is a network site planner that runs entirely in the browser or as a native desktop app. Drop a floor plan, place access points, IP cameras and switches, draw walls in different materials, and watch wall-aware coverage polygons + a real signal-strength heatmap fall out of a ray-cast simulation in real time — then design the wiring (PoE budgets, port maps, topology, cabling) and hand off branded PDF / BoM / cable-schedule deliverables.

Predictive RF (SNR / throughput / MCS, selectable propagation models, regulatory regions), multi-floor, band-aware (2.4 / 5 / 6 GHz), directional antennas, survey import for predicted-vs-measured validation. No backend. No accounts. Projects save to a JSON file you can email.

Download — latest release: desktop installers for macOS (.dmg), Windows (.exe) and Linux (.AppImage / .deb), or the portable browser zip (unzip and open index.html — no install, fully offline). · Changelog

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Features

Coverage modelling

• Wall-aware coverage — ray-cast simulation accumulates per-material dB attenuation (drywall, wood, glass, brick, concrete) for every wall the signal crosses. Each AP renders its actual reachable polygon, not a naive circle.
• Band-aware — 2.4 / 5 / 6 GHz APs apply different wall-loss multipliers because real RF doesn't care that they all use the same drywall.
• Directional antennas — omni, ceiling-down, wall-mount, sector 90 / 60 / 30°. Coverage polygon is masked by the pattern + heading.
• Real signal-strength heatmap — canvas-based per-pixel rendering with banded colours. Switch the heatmap between RSSI, SNR, MCS index, and estimated throughput, and filter it by band (2.4 / 5 / 6 GHz).
• Selectable propagation models — log-distance, ITU-R P.1238 indoor, or COST-231 multi-wall, so the prediction matches the building.
• Antenna fidelity — per-AP antenna gain, cable loss, mount height, and downtilt feed an effective-EIRP calculation.
• Regulatory regions — FCC, ETSI, JP, AU/NZ, IN, BR presets constrain channels, EIRP, and DFS.
• Roaming overlap — highlights where ≥2 APs deliver ≥ -67 dBm so clients can hand off cleanly.
• Floor-to-floor leakage — optionally show neighbouring floors' signal bleeding through the slab.
• Channel overlap warnings — APs sharing or interfering on a 2.4 GHz channel get a dashed orange link with a ⚡ Ch X pill.
• Auto channel + power planning — graph-colouring channel assignment and greedy per-AP Tx-power tuning, region-aware.
• Auto-AP placement — greedy "drop N APs to reach 92% coverage" optimizer that respects existing APs and walls.

Devices on the map

• Access points — UniFi, MikroTik, Aruba/HPE, Cisco Catalyst, Meraki, Ruckus, Cambium, TP-Link Omada, EnGenius, and Extreme catalogs with per-model PoE draw, antenna gain, and typical ranges. Paste your own catalog via the plugin dialog to extend the lists.
• IP cameras — UniFi Protect (G3 / G4 / G5 / AI), Hikvision, Dahua, Reolink, and Axis catalogs. Configurable FoV / heading / range; the field-of-view cone renders on the map. Press C to place.
• Switches & routers — per-switch PoE budget. Link any AP or camera to a switch and view the cable run on the map.
• Dead zones & walls — drag-to-draw walls (Shift snaps to 45°), multi-material, drag vertex handles to reshape after placement.
• SVG wall import — drop an SVG floor plan and line / polyline / polygon / path elements become walls automatically.

Network planning

• PoE budget — sum draw per switch from every AP / camera assigned to it; flag over-budget switches in the ⚡ PoE summary modal.
• Cable runs — toggle the Cables view to draw lines from devices to their switches with length labels (red when > 100 m).
• Survey import — import measured RSSI samples from a CSV; dots are flagged where measured signal deviates materially from predicted.
• AP-on-stick mode — drag a candidate AP and read live coverage / overlap feedback before committing the placement.

Deliverables

• BoM + cable-schedule CSV — one-click bill of materials and cable schedule for procurement and installers.
• Per-AP install sheets — a printable sheet per AP (location, radio config, switch port, comment) for the field team.
• Customer branding — project logo, company / tagline / footer line, and architect's-scale presets carried into HTML and PDF exports.
• Design review — snapshot revisions and diff any two; per-device comments on every AP, camera, switch, dead zone, and wall.
• Annotations — text labels, arrows, and dimension lines with live metre readouts.

Workflow

• Multi-floor — each floor carries its own image, scale (m / 100 px), APs, cameras, switches, dead zones, walls.
• Multi-select — Shift-click or marquee-drag in select mode; Delete clears the whole selection.
• Undo / redo — 50-step history with snapshot debouncing, so a slider scrub collapses to one undoable step.
• Autosave — silent every 10 s to localStorage; floor images live in IndexedDB so the payload stays tiny.
• Shareable URL — 🔗 Share copies a gzip + base64-encoded link that re-opens the project in any browser.
• HTML + per-floor PDF export — branded report with cover page, per-floor maps + tables, and per-AP / per-camera technical details.
• Dark mode, presentation mode, keyboard shortcuts for every tool, ruler for arbitrary distance measurements.
• i18n-ready — all UI strings route through a no-dependency t() helper; new languages drop in as bundles under files/src/i18n/.
• Runs from file:// after npm run build — no server required for end users.

Quick start

Requires Node 18+ (LTS recommended).

git clone https://github.com/SP1R4/plexus-network-planner
cd plexus-network-planner
npm install
npm run dev          # http://localhost:5173

Then in the app:

1. Click ↑ Upload Map and drop in a floor plan (PNG/JPG).
2. Set SCALE in the toolbar — metres per 100 px of the image.
3. Press A and click the map to place access points.
4. Press L to draw walls (Shift snaps to 45°).
5. Press ? for the full keyboard cheatsheet.

Build

npm run build        # → dist/ (open dist/index.html directly, no server needed)

The production build uses relative paths (base: './' in vite.config.js) so the output works equally well over http://, a CDN, or file://.

Desktop app (macOS / Windows / Linux)

Native installers wrap the same web build in an Electron window. Grab the installer for your OS from the Releases page:

OS	File
macOS	.dmg (or .zip)
Windows	.exe (NSIS installer)
Linux	.AppImage or .deb

Installers are produced by a GitHub Actions matrix (.github/workflows/release.yml) on every v* tag — one runner per OS, since each native package must be built on its own platform.

Build it yourself

npm install
npm run app:dev      # launch the desktop app against the current build
npm run app:build    # → release/  (installer for the OS you're on)

app:build only produces the current platform's installer — macOS makes the .dmg/.zip, Windows the .exe, Linux the .AppImage/.deb. Use the CI workflow (push a tag) to get all three at once.

App icons live in electron/resources/ and are regenerated with npm run make:icons (macOS only — uses sips/iconutil).

Unsigned builds — first-launch bypass

The apps are not code-signed (that needs paid Apple/Windows certificates), so the OS will warn on first launch. This is expected:

• macOS — right-click the app → Open → Open (once). Or, if Gatekeeper still blocks it: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Plexus.app".
• Windows — on the SmartScreen prompt, click More info → Run anyway.
• Linux — chmod +x the .AppImage and run it.

Tests

npm test             # vitest unit tests (one-shot)
npm run test:watch   # vitest watch mode
npm run typecheck    # tsc --checkJs over the pure modules
npm run e2e:install  # one-time: fetch the Playwright browser
npm run e2e          # Playwright end-to-end smoke suite

93 unit tests across pure geometry and project-file migration, plus a Playwright E2E smoke suite that boots the app. The files/src/ modules are type-checked with tsc --checkJs via JSDoc annotations — no .ts rename. Adding a feature that touches walls, coverage, or schema versions? Drop a test next to the existing ones in tests/.

Project layout

files/
  index.html         UI shell
  app.js             App orchestrator (state, DOM, event handlers)
  styles.css         Theming + component styles
  fonts.css          Self-hosted font faces
  src/
    geometry.js      Pure RF math — ray-cast, attenuation, dBm, SNR,
                     MCS, throughput, propagation models (DOM-free)
    migrate.js       Project-file schema migrations (v1 → v8)
    constants.js     AP / camera / switch catalogs + antenna patterns
                     + PoE tables + heatmap modes + regulatory regions
    imageStore.js    IndexedDB image storage
    i18n.js          No-dependency t() translation helper
    i18n/en.js       English string bundle
tests/
  geometry.test.js   Geometry + band-loss + directional + RF math tests
  migrate.test.js    Schema migration tests (every prior version)
  e2e/smoke.spec.js  Playwright end-to-end smoke suite
vite.config.js       Build config (relative paths for file:// portability)
vitest.config.js     Unit-test config (points at ./tests/)
playwright.config.js E2E-test config (tests/e2e/, auto-starts dev server)
tsconfig.json        checkJs type-check config for files/src/
scripts/             OS-specific one-line installers (macOS / Ubuntu / Windows)

How the coverage math works

For each access point we cast 72 rays (one every 5°) outward. Each ray walks through every wall it intersects, sums the per-material dB loss multiplied by the AP's band factor (0.6 for 2.4 GHz, 1.0 for 5 GHz, 1.3 for 6 GHz), and shrinks the ray's reach by 0.5^(loss/3) — a rough approximation that each 3 dB of attenuation halves the usable range. The 72 endpoints form a polygon, cached on the AP, that's the visible coverage shape.

The floor-coverage percentage is a coarse grid sampler that asks the same question — "can any AP reach this point through the walls?" — at ~60 points across the shorter axis of the image.

See files/src/geometry.js for the actual implementation; it's pure, DOM-free, and unit-tested.

Project file format

Projects save as a single JSON file; floor-plan images live in IndexedDB and are referenced by id. Schema is versioned; the migrator can read every prior version. Current schema is v8 — see files/src/migrate.js for the version history.

Roadmap

• Tauri desktop build + optional cloud sync (deferred to v4)
• Ekahau / NetSpot survey-file import (today: CSV only)
• True isotropic 5 GHz channel-conflict modelling (today only 2.4 GHz channels 1–14 are flagged for adjacency)
• Additional UI language bundles (English ships today)

Contributing

Bug reports, feature requests, and PRs are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the workflow.

For anything that touches geometry, walls, or schema versions, add a test in tests/.

Security

Found something that shouldn't be public-facing? See SECURITY.md for how to report it.

License

MIT — do whatever you want, just don't blame me when your boss asks why the coverage map said the conference room had signal.