In iOS programming, is that possible to get nearby Wifi's SSID without connecting to them?

Hi,

I'm looking for getting list of nearby wifi's SSID, without connecting to it. I did some research on internet about this also, by below discussion, look like it is not possible without jailbreaking the phone, which I don't like:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9684341/iphone-get-a-list-of-all-ssids-without-private-library

The disscussion was from 2013, so I just wonder if it is possible to do that with newest frameworks?

Thanks,



Lam

Replies

I'm looking for getting list of nearby wifi's SSID, without connecting to it.

It's not possible to do this in any general way. There are some affordances for specific use cases (for example, apps can use the External Accessory framework to set up MFi accessories that have a Wi-Fi) but no general-purpose 'scan for nearby Wi-Fi networks" API.

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Quinn "The Eskimo!"
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

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I would be very interested in seeing if the functionality of CoreWLANWirelessManager (Mac) could be ported to iOS. It has all the functionality needed for scanning Wi-Fi.

In regards to the specific use cases - if we are only scanning for Wi-Fi routers that are associated with our companies' network, would this fall under a specific use case exemption? We are not monitoring, invading or violating any privacy in terms of Wi-Fi SSID.

See the documentation for NEHotspotHelper: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/NetworkExtension/Reference/NEHotspotHelperClassRef/index.html


You have to apply and be approved for the exemption, and you won't be making your case for the exemption on the forum.