App Release 1.49 is available on iOS / Android.
Some of the new features require box version 1.9732 or above. This version is currently available to
- Firewalla Gold, Firewalla Purple, Blue Plus
New Features
- Network Performance
- Internet Speed Test and Wi-Fi Speed Test
- Internet Quality: Packet Loss and Latency Test
- Able to block Internet on devices when they are in a group
- Top Devices, Destinations, and Flows by Download / Upload ( Top Devices feature requires Box 1.9732 and above)
- Active VPN Connections
1. Network Performance
Firewalla is introducing a new tool to help you understand your network performance at a glance. (This feature will remain beta until we gather more information on the accuracy of the test results)
Summary:
A colored bar chart representing the total outage, max latency, and max packet loss over the last 24 hours.
- If the bar is shown RED, it means the Internet has been down during that certain period.
- If the bar is shown YELLOW, it means the Internet has been unstable, because the system has detected high Latency, high packet loss, or secondary wan (if you have a dual WAN setting) is down.
- If the bar is shown GREEN, it means your network performance is considered to be good.
Note, this feature requires box version 1.9732 and above.
Learn more about Network Performance.
Recent Events:
Recent Events is moved from Network Manager to the Network Performance page.
Two types of new events "High latency event" and " High packet loss event" are introduced to help you identify internet quality issues. Learn more about: Internet Quality Test.
2. Internet Speed Test and Wi-Fi Speed Test 
(This feature will remain beta until we gather more information on the accuracy of the test results)
Internet Speed Test
It measures the connection speed between the Firewalla box and a speed test server nearby. The test can run manually by tapping the "Test Internet Speed" button, or automatically at a specified time daily.
Firewalla keeps the internet speed test results for 7 days, and it provides you with a chart to show how the download/upload speed is changing over time.
If the automatic speed test is turned on, a chart with download speed will be shown on the box main page, to help you identify any significant drop.
- Due to how speed test servers are located (and also test load), the accuracy of the tests depends on where you are at, the time of the test, and the load of the test servers. If you see results that are not accurate, please verify with a desktop speed test program. (Firewalla can not guarantee the test results to be perfect)
Note, this feature requires box version 1.9732 and above.
Learn more about the Internet Speed Test.
Wi-Fi LAN Speed Test
Wi-Fi speed test measures the speed from this phone to Firewalla Box. When you are connected to Firewalla's local network, you can use the app to test the Wi-Fi speed in different places and find the best/worst Wi-Fi spots in your room. Only the last test results will be kept on the App.
Note, this feature requires box version 1.9732 and above.
Learn more about Wi-Fi LAN Speed Test.
3. Internet Quality: Packet Loss and Latency Test
Internet Quality measures the packet loss and latency to a specified server regularly. Internet quality test is not enabled by default, when enabled, Firewalla will automatically pick one of your DNS servers as the test target. You can tap on Test Settings to change it at any time.
When turned on, it will ping the test target with a certain interval time. The test results will be kept for 24 hours, and the App will show you 2 charts of how the results are changing over time.
When Firewalla detects a relatively high latency or high packet loss, it will also trigger an event.
Note, this feature requires box version 1.9732 and above.
Learn more about Latency and Packet Loss Test.
4. Able to block internet on devices when they're in a group
Many of you wanted to manage the access of devices separately after they've been put into a Device Group. In this release, we are providing you with more flexibility to do that.
For any devices, even if the device has joined a device group, you can tap the Internet Control button to block the internet access for one hour or permanently. Please note, the rule created by tapping the control button can only be paused or deleted, it can not be modified, so it is still not available to apply a complex rule to a device that is in a group.
5. Top Devices, Destinations, and Flows by Download / Upload
If you are wondering which devices are consuming the most amount of bandwidth, or which destinations your devices have been uploading data to, Firewalla App is now providing you with the insights.
Tap the Network Flows of any devices, groups, networks, or all devices, the App will show you the lists of top destinations and flows sorted by data downloaded and uploaded, the time range can be any specific hours or the last 24 hours in total. You can tap on any devices or destinations to drill down and view the detail. If you find any suspicious connections, just tap Block to stop it directly.
- Top devices feature is in beta and requires box version 1.9732 and above.
- Top destinations and top flows will be supported on all boxes.
6. Active VPN Connections
If you have the VPN Server feature enabled, Firewalla App is now able to show you how many active VPN connections are connected to your Firewalla box, where they’ve been connected from, and how much data has been transferred between your Firewalla box (as VPN server) and the VPN clients.
On Firewalla App’s main screen, if anyone is connected to your Firewalla box via VPN, there will be a green tag shown on the VPN server button. Tap the VPN server button -> Active VPN connections, tap any connection to view more details of it. If you’d like to know exactly where the connection is initiated from, you can tap the Endpoint IP address and do a quick security lookup.
If you spot any suspicious or unwanted VPN connections, tap the “View VPN Profile” button to revoke the access or reset the profile, or tap the “View Network Detail” / “View Device Detail” button to pause a specific type of traffic.
Enhancement:
- Able to create network or change network type directly without tapping the "Edit" button first.
- Able to search any devices, groups, and networks when searching on the devices list.
- Able to search devices by the local domain name.
- Able to paste license code when scanning QR code if the camera doesn't work or failed to identify the QR code.
- Able to show the owner, update time, and the notes of target lists.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed the issue of offline devices shown as online right after migration.
- Fixed the issue of incorrect online time of VPN devices.
- Fixed the issue of missing VLAN ID when switching between router mode and bridge mode.
-
Fixed the Data Usage calculation error when the data used exceeds the data plan.
- Fixed the issue that the IPv6 is not turned on by default.
- Many minor UI bugs
Known Issue:
- We are still optimizing speed tests, it may not be totally accurate, and may be dependent on the location you are.
- If your box has been powered off for a period of time, the performance bar will not be able to represent the power outage of the box. Power outage events will be supported in the next release (1.50).
- On iOS App, if a device has joined a group, the group tag the devices list will be in a dark background, which makes the tag hard to read. This is a known UI bug and will be fixed in the next app update.
- You may encounter problems when connecting Purple's Wi-Fi WAN to an Unifi AP with PMF enabled. The workaround is to disable PMF or turn it into "Optional". If this issue occurs to you, please send an email to help@firewalla.com and let us know.
Comments
21 comments
On the new app release 1.49(132), you have put a border around the group name. I know this is minor, but the text underneath is almost unreadable on the app.
Thanks
So not sure I am missing something... but why does it all say 100% loss when there is no loss??? And my Latency is blank...
My Speedtest is pretty close. The Firewalla App chose a server further away but within range.
@ Andy brown Thanks for the finding, we will fix the issue in the next beta release.
@ Shawn H In the internet quality page, test setting selects "ping 204.XX.XX.XX" as test target, can you try ping this IP address from the device under firewalla and see whether this IP address is reachable ? BTW, do you have dual WAN ? or changed network config recently ?
@ support. It pings fine. I have it set to ping once an hour. But quality is still blank. It pings fine.
No dual wan. And is pretty stock.
Some feedback and suggestions on the 1.49 Beta from my experience so far. I posted this on the r/firewalla reddit sub but I am duping it here because I’m not sure which is the correct forum to use. I used the iOS version of the app if that helps.
Great features overall so please take these notes as requests for bonus sweetness on top of an awesome starting point. I’ll attempt to avoid repeating comments others have made in the thread already and any questions I ask are primarily rhetorical. :)
1) I’d prefer it if Network Performance was in the Features list. When clicking on Network Performance if you could provide an ‘Add to home page, Remove from home page’ option like you do for networks and devices that would be preferable to me. Past speed tests and network performance aren’t something I personally find to be consistently critical information so I’d love to be able to remove them from my home page if possible. This is definitely in the ‘nice to have’ rather than critical category though for sure. :)
2) The summary performance home page widget appears to show a graph of the peak daily DL speed over the last seven days if Automatic Speed Tests are enabled. EDIT: I’d much prefer average throughput was graphed here and in the full view as explained in subsequent posts. It would be nice if upload was plotted here too in red and if the text cycled between Last Test Download (as shown now), Last Test Upload, Average Upload (for the shown seven day period), Average Download (for the shown seven day period). Additionally, and this is perhaps a broader question impacting other sections, how are you guys thinking about speed tests for folks with dual WAN? Sadly I’m not in that group but hope to be soon. I imagine Network Performance features would ideally look at all ISPs/WAN providers in use? Would & should both ISP graphs, data appear here?
3) The summary info home page widget seems to show a solid green bar consistently for me which I guess is a good sign. Is this an uptime bar for the past 24 hours in this widget similar to that when one drills down?
Does this bar change color based on outage events over the displayed period? What sort of events cause the bar to change color and how? WAN 1, WAN 2 out etc? Do port down events show here too, perhaps in orange? Ideally looking at the bar would allow one to ascertain at a glance what’s occurred at a high level over the shown period so one can determine whether it’s worth drilling down into the full UI and event log to learn more - one of my WANs went down, I’d like to know which ISP it was; looks like one of my ports went out I’ll go check which that was. Perhaps this is the current functionality and I have the good fortune not to see it in action…I’ve had down events and nothing has shown but perhaps these were too short in duration?
4) When I go to the main Network Performance page proper its odd to me that the downtime timeline bar is for the past twenty four hours but yet all events from the past seven days are stored. Ideally I’d like to be able to scroll back in time on this full bar to visualize events from the last seven days too. Clicking on an event representation in this bar would go to the corresponding event entry perhaps for added ease of use? Again, no color change indication is shown for me even for down events that have occurred although these have been short.
5) The test interval on the Internet Quality Test appears to be every 60 minutes regardless of any other setting chosen 15 min/20 min/30 min. To an earlier point I’d like to know this info for all ISPs I have connected.
6) It’s tough to get reliably comparable speed tests over time with randomly selected local destination servers. Is there any way we can lock in a server or pick one to use consistently from a list? Again I’d like speed test functionality for all ISPs connected.
7) The new upload/download grouping is really nice and has already helped identify long term unexpected bandwidth hogs. However, it could be INFINITELY more useful I feel if you additionally provided the ability to filter the past hour list by last 5 seconds, last 30 seconds, last 1 minute too. In this way I’d additionally be able to hone in on devices that are using bandwidth IN THE MOMENT and that’s a massively valuable use case to me.
Thanks and I hope this is helpful. Keep up the outstanding work.
@ Shawn H. I've created a ticket with you to request more details on this issue. Can you help to check the email and reply ? Thanks.
@ Support.
Done!
This could be expected behavior but I have the Beta 1.49 app running on my paired Apple devices but 1.48 on my Android phones with Beta 1.9732 on my FWG.
Simply running the 1.48 app on Android toggles off the Internet Quality Test setting.
It doesn’t do this for the Automatic Speed Test.
Just an FYI.
Some follow up points.
1) It would be nice to have the option to schedule more than 1 automated speed test per day to get a perspective on how one’s ISP performs daily at different periods over time.
2) Having used this feature for a while now it’s become apparent that the network bandwidth performance graphs connect peak download/upload measurements day to day. I’m not sure if this is what most users would ideally want from this feature at a glance. If for example one measures 10 speed tests throughout a day. If 9 of these result in 100Mbps DL speeds and 1 is 1Gbps to see the download graph pegged to the peak 1Gb reading doesn’t truly represent the performance of one’s ISP on average for that day as measured. Wouldn’t a graph connecting daily median speed peaks be more appropriate?
I hope the feedback is helpful.
@SRP
Thanks for the feedback!
1. Yes, using 1.48 will auto turn off the quality testing feature due to compatibility issue.
2. maybe in the future. We don't want to enable this option for now, as we need more time to evaluate how much bandwidth the speedtest feature will cost. We don't want our users run out of their data plan by justing using speedtest feature.
3. The graph will just draw all the dots if you run multiple speedtests within a day (manually), it doesn't just show the max one.
Thanks for the kind response. 1. & 2. make total sense.
Regarding 3, I think it’s great that you show all the dots for readings and noticed that. The point I made was more about where the blue and red lines connect to from day to day. With only a single reading obviously it would remain unchanged, however, with say 20 manual readings where 19 are at 10Mbs and 1 is at 1Gbs, shouldn’t the line from the previous day connect to somewhere near 10Mbs rather than 1Gbps since this visually represents more accurately the daily throughput over that day?
I guess I’m saying that currently it’s a graph of max throughput with plotted points showing deviation. I believe it would be more useful as a graph of average throughput with plotted points showing deviation.
At a glance the former quickly shows me if my max throughput has been consistent, the latter if my overall ISP performance has been consistent which I posit is the more commonly desired use case.
I hope that makes sense.
Anyway, just a suggestion. :)
First of all... I love my Firewalla Purple and the App. Never had this enterprise grade firewalling, monitoring, and VPN possibilities before on my home net. At my corpnet we use a CheckPoint Firewall cluster, so i know what enterprise grade is.
Just one little thing (exept of the already mentioned Internet speed test suggestions).
I just enabled OpenVPN Server cause I`m courious, but disabled it after peeking in, cause i love to use WireGuard VPN Server.
But now the OpenVPN Network is persistent in the Network Manager and i cannot delete it (unlike deleting a LAN/VLAN network). It would be great to delete VPN Networks as well if not used anymore.
Thanks
greetings rage
@Rage
Thanks for the feedback. Will forward to the team.
@SRP
Thanks for the feedback. I totally understand your point. It makes sense if there are multiple dots within a day (max vs. avg, yes, avg is better).
We are looking forward to deploying app 1.49 to production, and if many people want more frequent tests, we can certainly add the option in future versions.
I have the FWP, and my Internet Speed in the app is half the speed I get from my ISP. It's coming down at 400Mb/s. I thought the purple could do 1Gb/s down.
The FWP is in router mode directly connected to the Cable Modem using the provided ethernet cable. Is there anything I need to be doing differently get closer to expected speeds?
did you test using a PC/MAC connecting to the ethernet side of the FWP? or you are talking about the reporting from FWP? If reporting from FWP, test using an external device.
The FWP has 6 ARM Cores, it can handle gigibit
I'm talking about the report on the FWP shown in the App when running the Internet Speed Test. I get about 407Mbs. My Google Wifi (on the back of the FWP via 8-port managed switch) clocks in with 450Mbs. (fairly similar there) But results from Google Wifi prior to FWP, I was getting 800Mbps+. Perhaps it's a time of day thing with being xFinity?
When will 1.9732 be released?
@Daniel
For Gold, about 1-2 weeks. Blue Plus will come later.
Purple is already updated.
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