Questions, answered honestly

Latency is the time it takes a small piece of data to travel from your device to a server and back, measured in milliseconds (ms). A "ping" is the little round-trip message used to measure it, so the Ping number in a Connection Check is your latency. Lower is better: low latency makes browsing feel instant and keeps voice and video calls conversational, while high latency adds that awkward talk-over-each-other delay.

Jitter is how much your latency varies from moment to moment, also in milliseconds. A steady connection delivers data at an even rhythm (low jitter); an unsteady one delivers it in bursts (high jitter). It matters most for real-time uses like voice and video calls, where an uneven flow comes through as choppy or robotic audio even when average speed looks fine.

Data travels the internet in small chunks called packets. Packet loss is the percentage of them that never arrive and have to be sent again. A little loss just slows things down; on live calls there's no time to resend, so lost packets become dropped words or frozen video. 0% is ideal, and a few percent is enough to notice on a call.

Both measure how much data can move per second, in megabits per second (Mbps). Download is data coming to your device; it drives how quickly pages, photos, and video streams load. Upload is data leaving your device; it drives sending photos, posting video, and your outgoing side of a video call. Checks run on cellular use reduced transfer sizes to be gentle on your data plan.

Your latency measured while a download or upload is running at full speed. On many connections it rises sharply under load, which is why a video call can stutter the moment someone else on the same connection starts a large transfer. The web Connection Check reports it separately for the download and upload phases; a small rise is normal, a large one means the connection struggles to do two things at once.

A score from 1 to 5, an industry-standard Mean Opinion Score (MOS), summarizing what a voice call would likely feel like on the connection just measured. It's computed from the check's own ping, jitter, and packet loss numbers using the ITU-T E-model for voice quality. It directly reflects internet-based calling like Wi-Fi Calling or app-based voice calls, and is an informed proxy for regular carrier calls. No call is ever placed to produce it.

Quality tiers (No service, Weak, Fair, Good, Strong) are app-defined scores built from public signals: whether a validated connection succeeded, how quickly it completed, and whether the system flags the connection as limited, for example a metered hotspot or a Data Saver connection. They're a useful relative guide, not a claim of signal-bar accuracy. Green means trust it, amber means caution, red means it's down.

It measures download and upload throughput, latency, jitter, and latency under load from your browser, then grades the result in plain language and estimates call quality. Test traffic goes to Cloudflare's public speed servers, not to pingVu, so it reflects a well-connected internet endpoint rather than any one service you use. Packet loss can't be measured from a browser, so the call-quality estimate assumes none and is labeled as an estimate. And a browser can't choose which network interface it uses, so run the test on the connection you actually care about (for example, turn Wi-Fi off first to test cellular on a laptop with a hotspot).

It depends on the length you choose and how fast the connection is. The Quick Connection Check runs about 15 seconds and uses up to about 70 MB; the Extended check runs about 30 seconds and uses up to about 350 MB on a very fast connection, less on slower ones. Each phase stops at its time budget or its data cap, whichever comes first. VideoScout shows its own estimate before you start: about 5 MB for the standard run, about 30 MB for the full-size run, and up to about 70 MB uncapped on Wi-Fi. Nothing starts until you tap the button.

No. Results are computed and displayed in your browser and are never transmitted to pingVu. This website also uses no analytics, ad pixels, or third-party trackers.

They measure different things in different places. The app runs on your phone's cellular or Wi-Fi radio and can bind to a specific network; the web test runs on whatever connection your browser is using, which on a laptop is usually Wi-Fi or Ethernet. On cellular, the app also deliberately keeps transfers small to protect your data plan, so very fast connections read low there unless you choose the full-size test.

pingVu watches the device's connection state through the system's network-status indicators, then runs a lightweight secure connection probe to a stable server. The result is scored based on reachability, latency, and whether the system flags the connection as limited, for example a metered hotspot or a Data Saver connection.

On iPhone, apps can't read signal bars at all; on Android they can read measured strength, but a reading isn't proof a connection works. Apps that claim to "boost" or precisely measure bars are guessing. pingVu is deliberately honest: it never pretends the bars tell the whole story. It verifies with a real connection on both platforms instead.

Before telling you service is back, the app opens a real secure connection over the specific network being checked, to a stable, highly available server. Only a connection that actually completes counts as "usable", so an alert means traffic really flowed, not just that a path appeared.

The voice badge shows the radio type your phone is registered on (5G, LTE, 3G), a prerequisite for ordinary calls, but not a measure of call quality. A red "None" means your phone isn't camped on any tower, so ordinary calls won't go through (emergency calls may still connect through any available carrier, and recent iPhones can reach emergency services by satellite where supported). The data rows are different: they reflect pingVu's own verified connection checks.

The graph shows gaps where no samples were collected rather than drawing a fake line through them. If the app wasn't watching, the graph says so; honest gaps beat invented data.

Validation probes use minimal data, a single lightweight secure connection of about 1 KB. No large downloads are performed unless you run a Connection Check yourself, and on cellular those transfers are kept small (under about 1 MB per run), which is why very fast cellular connections read low: the result is a floor, not a ceiling. When you need an accurate reading on fast cellular, choose "Full-size cellular test" next to the check buttons: it transfers up to about 15 MB per run, comparable to other speed-test apps, and switches itself off at the next launch. Background checks are even less frequent and always lightweight.

Occasionally, after the app verifies your service is back, it offers a one-tap "Confirm" to note that signal is genuinely working where you are. Confirming records that spot on your coverage map and runs a quick connection check. Like the rest of your coverage data it stays on your device, and you can delete it under Settings ▸ Data Management.

SignalScout shows the current verified connection quality at your position, the same tier your Home screen shows, along with its trend: improving, steady, or declining. A hands-free audio meter ticks faster as the measurement gets stronger. Never watch the screen while driving. SignalScout is part of Premium.

Because no app can honestly know where better signal is. SignalScout reports the verified quality right where you stand and whether it's improving, steady, or declining: real measurements, not a guess about somewhere you aren't. Walk your space and watch the reading; pingVu won't pretend to point the way.

MeetingScout helps you plan when to leave for your next call. You add a call (or pick one from your calendar), then choose a verified call spot from eligible places: spots where a real connection recently completed, verified by you or by the community with high confidence. pingVu never picks a spot for you and never navigates; once you've chosen, it estimates travel time and reminds you when to leave. MeetingScout is part of Premium.

Only when you tap "From Calendar", never at launch. Access is read-only: pingVu reads the picked event's title and start time, nothing else, and nothing calendar-derived leaves your device. Only calendars signed in to your phone's calendar app are visible; accounts that live only in their own apps won't appear.

It streams a short test video and measures what streaming actually feels like on your connection: how long the first frame takes, how often playback stalls, and what quality level the connection sustains, graded Poor to Excellent with a "smooth up to 1080p"-style summary. On cellular the test is shorter and quality-capped to protect your data plan, and the estimated data use is shown before you run it. The same test is available in your browser on the connection test page. The test video is an excerpt from "Sintel", an open movie © Blender Foundation, used under CC BY 3.0.

When you report a connectivity issue at a location, the app monitors that area. If you later leave and signal comes back, you'll get a notification. On iPhone this uses Always location authorization for background delivery; on Android it runs on the monitoring service's own location fixes while monitoring is on, with no background location permission needed.

No. Neither iPhone nor Android lets pingVu send on your behalf; you always confirm. pingVu stages your queued messages and surfaces them ready to send the moment service is verified back, and you always make the final tap.

The coverage map keeps every measurement you've ever recorded, but to stay fast and smooth it draws only the most recent markers within the current view, a few hundred at a time, rather than thousands at once. Nothing is deleted: markers outside the view or older than what's drawn are still saved and still count toward your community coverage. To see older points, narrow the time range at the top of the map (1h / 24h / 7d / 30d / All) or zoom into a specific area.

This icon, an arrow pointing up to a line, marks altitude: your height above sea level in meters, captured with each location fix. You'll see it next to location events in Session Detail and on report entries. Elevation helps map coverage patterns in hilly terrain, mountains, or tall buildings where height affects signal.

Yes. Go to Settings › Units and choose Automatic, Imperial, or Metric. The setting is free for everyone.

HomeScout lets you walk your home with your phone and build a 3D map of where Wi-Fi and cellular actually work, room by room, measured with real connections, not simulated. It works on any AR-capable iPhone or Android phone; LiDAR iPhones and iPads can add automatic room walls, and everyone can trace room outlines by hand (outlines are cosmetic and never change your measurements). Camera frames are used only for position tracking and are never stored or uploaded. Maps stay on your device. HomeScout is part of pingVu Pro.

Your reports, history, and location records are stored only on your device; the developer never receives them, and there are no analytics. While you monitor, "Map my results" (Settings ▸ Route collection, on by default) records your signal tiers on your own coverage map; like the rest of your data it stays on your phone and you can turn it off or delete it any time. Two system-service exceptions, like any maps app: showing the map loads imagery from pingVu's content network (on iPhone, from Apple Maps) and looking up a place name uses your phone's geocoding service, and connection checks exchange test traffic (no personal data) with well-known Apple and Cloudflare servers. One optional exception you control: "Share anonymous coverage data" in Settings (off by default) contributes anonymized coverage measurements to a shared cell service map. You're asked explicitly before anything is shared, everything is anonymized on your phone first, and "Delete all app data" also erases what this phone has shared from the server. See the privacy policy for the full story.

Anonymization happens on your phone before anything is sent: locations are coarsened to about 150 m cells and timestamps to 15-minute windows, and the server rejects anything more precise. Uploads are verified with Apple's App Attest on iPhone and Play Integrity on Android to keep fake data out, and that credential is stripped before anything is stored. Cells are published only after enough independent reports cover an area. And pingVu publicly commits to never attempting to re-identify contributed data.

Yes. When you opt in to sharing, your phone mints a random deletion token that travels with your measurements, stored nowhere but your phone and unlinkable to you by construction. "Delete all app data" in Settings sends your tokens and the server permanently deletes every raw measurement attached to them, completed within 72 hours.