Why can't pingVu read my signal bars?
iOS gives apps no public way to read the cellular or Wi-Fi signal strength shown in your status bar. Apps that claim to "boost" or precisely measure bars are guessing. pingVu is deliberately honest: it never pretends to read the bars — it verifies whether your connection actually works instead.
How does pingVu know service is really back?
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.
What do the quality tiers mean?
Quality tiers (Weak → Strong) are app-defined scores built from public signals: whether a validated connection succeeded, how quickly it completed, and whether the path is constrained or expensive. They're a useful relative guide, not a claim of signal-bar accuracy.
Does my data leave my device?
Everything the app records — signal history, coverage maps, reports, queued messages — stays on your device unless you explicitly opt in to anonymous community sharing (off by default). Even then, only measurements anonymized on your phone are transmitted: a ~150 m area code and a 15-minute time window, never exact coordinates, timestamps, or identifiers. See the
privacy policy for the full story.
What's the difference between the voice badge and the data rows?
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.
Why does the history graph have gaps?
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.
What is the estimated call quality score?
It's a Mean Opinion Score (1–5) computed from the app's own measurements — ping, jitter, and packet loss — using the industry-standard ITU-T E-model for voice quality. It directly reflects internet-based calling (Wi-Fi Calling, FaceTime Audio) and is a proxy for regular carrier calls. No call is ever placed to produce it.
Can pingVu send my queued texts automatically?
No — and that's the platform, not us. iOS doesn't permit apps to auto-send texts or place calls. pingVu stages your queued messages and surfaces them ready to send the moment service is verified back; you always make the final tap.
What does the Video Test measure?
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 test video is an excerpt from "Sintel", an open movie © Blender Foundation, used under CC BY 3.0.
How does the community coverage map stay anonymous?
Anonymization happens on your phone before anything is sent: locations are coarsened to ~150 m cells and timestamps to 15-minute windows, and the server rejects anything more precise. Uploads are verified with Apple's App Attest 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.
Can I delete data I've shared?
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.
Is pingVu coming to Android?
Yes — development starts once the iOS app completes its App Store rollout. Android's public APIs expose real signal measurements that iPhones don't, so the Android app will report measured signal strength alongside the same verified tiers.
Join the waitlist to hear when it lands.
