Joe McCrawThe problem
Working as an engineer on live productions and massive corporate keynotes, you’re constantly dealing with invisible variables: Where is the venue Wi-Fi dropping packets? Which access points are congested or overlapping? If a presenter or camera operator walks to the far corner of the stage, will their connection drop?
Traditional network meters give you raw numbers on a screen, but they don’t map naturally to physical architecture. Engineers needed an intuitive way to see signal strength overlaid directly onto the venue floor in real time.
The solution
I built ColdSpotting as a native iOS app that mapped cellular and Wi-Fi signal diagnostics directly into 3D space using ARKit. As you walked through a room, the app dropped color-coded signal beacons in augmented reality, creating an instant, spatial heatmap of RF coverage.
It allowed engineers to compare multi-carrier reception, test latency under real-world conditions, and perform rapid pre-show site surveys before thousands of attendees entered the room.
What I built
- Native Swift core for cellular and Wi-Fi signal telemetry and ping latency analysis
- Real-time AR spatial anchor and beacon visualization pipeline using ARKit
- Multi-carrier comparative survey tools for field engineers
- Shipped to the iOS App Store (2018–2022)
Why it mattered
ColdSpotting grew out of a direct need on the show floor. It connected live event AV/IT domain expertise with early augmented reality to solve a real physical problem: turning invisible radio signals into something an engineer could walk through, inspect, and fix.
Status
The app was maintained on the App Store through 2022 and is now archived. The original project documentation and articles remain preserved on the ShowBlender archive.