I’ve been told countless times that the best way to keep tabs on my home network is with an app, like Wi-Fi Analyzer. It’s undoubtedly very useful, and I’ve used it at home and in the office to help figure out why we have network congestion.

But it turns out I didn’t need a third-party app, because hidden away on my Samsung is a Wi-Fi analysis tool that I didn’t even know about, buried deep in a menu almost nobody opens. Connectivity Labs has been there all along, giving in-depth Wi-Fi analytics, and best of all, it’s totally free.

Samsung actually never mentions this in any onboarding screen

When you open the Wi-Fi menu from the Quick Settings panel or from the Settings screen, you will see a basic set of options to turn Wi-Fi on or off. It shows you a list of networks, a QR scanner, and a three-dot menu that includes Wi-Fi Direct, Intelligent Wi-Fi, and advanced settings. However, when you unlock the hidden menu, you will see a new option called Connectivity Labs in the three-dot menu icon that is a different thing altogether.

Intelligent Wi-Fi has a deeper set of tools that Samsung never mentions anywhere. I found a video dating back to 2023 about Intelligent Wi-Fi, but it only popped up when I started searching for it, and it doesn’t mention Connectivity Labs. If someone doesn’t know anything about Intelligent Wi-Fi, then they might never be able to take advantage of all the settings it has to offer.

Here is how you unlock the Intelligent Wi-Fi menu on your Samsung phone:

1. Open the Settings menu on your phone.
2. Tap on Connections, then select Wi-Fi.
3. Tap the three-dot-menu icon in the top-right corner.
4. Select Intelligent Wi-Fi.

But things don’t end here. Intelligent Wi-Fi lets you control things like automatically switching between Wi-Fi and mobile data. Most people would stop right here. However, you shouldn’t. You need to do a few more taps to unlock Connectivity Labs.

1. Scroll down to the bottom of Intelligent Wi-Fi.
2. Tap on the version number multiple times until you see a countdown pop-up.
3. A brand new Connectivity Labs option will appear underneath.

It is the same trick you use to unlock Developer Options inside Android’s software version menu. The interesting part is that Connectivity Labs has been there since One UI 6 and still works with the newer builds.

It shows you numbers that your Wi-Fi icon never shows

RSSI, band, and channel data that you can actually use

Once Connectivity Labs is unlocked, you get access to a pile of stats your phone has been tracking behind the scenes all along, including connection uptime, saved network counts, which Wi-Fi standard you are actually running on, and a proper signal-mapping tool called Home Wi-Fi Inspection.

The scan reports your signal in RSSI, which just measures how strongly your phone can hear the router. It shows as a negative number, and the rule is simple: closer to zero is better. According to Ruijie Networks’ breakdown of RSSI, anything between -30 dBm and -67 dBm counts as a solid connection, while readings that go well past -70 dBm are problematic, and this is where video calls start freezing and pages stop loading. You don’t need to memorize any of that because the tool color-codes it for easy understanding.

Below the signal map, Connectivity Labs also shows which Wi-Fi band and standard you have been using. This comes in handy if you just paid extra for a Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 router and want proof your phone is actually taking advantage of it, instead of using an older band in certain rooms.

When I took matters into my own hands and inspected my Wi-Fi router signal, my signal cratered well past the point where a stable video call is realistic, and interestingly, it was not my ISP’s fault at all; it was distance and a wall doing exactly what distance and walls do to a 5GHz signal.

I used Samsung’s built-in Wi-Fi scanner to fix my Wi-Fi

Zero new hardware required

Credit: Chris Hachey / MakeUseOf

With Connectivity Labs, my guessing game about how to fix my Wi-Fi speed stopped. Here is what I did after the scan results.

1. Moved the router about six feet closer to the center room instead of the back corner.
2. Switched my office devices to prefer the 2.4GHz band for that one room, since it travels through walls better than 5GHz.
3. Checked for channel congestion and chose a quieter one.
4. I re-ran the Home Wi-Fi Inspection scan to confirm the fix worked, instead of just assuming it did.

That last step matters more than people think. If you are the type who has considered a mesh system instead, it is worth running a proper mesh test first, so you are not throwing hardware at a problem a $0 router move could have easily fixed.

Connectivity Labs has more tricks up its sleeves

While the dead-zone hunt is the headline feature, I ended up poking around the rest of the menu, and a couple of other toggles are worth knowing about. For instance, the “Switch to mobile data faster” does what it says. Notably, your phone gives up on a struggling Wi-Fi connection sooner and falls back to mobile data instead of clinging to a network that is technically “connected” but practically useless. Then there is “Nearby Wi-Fi information” that shows you details about public networks around you before you connect, which is a small but genuinely useful thing to have when you’re hopping between airport lounges or coffee shops on a work trip.

Samsung clearly built Connectivity Labs to debug connection issues, but never bothered to tell the rest of us it existed. If your Wi-Fi has ever felt inconsistent in one specific room, it is worth the seven taps to find out what the actual problem is.