What's new in PeakHour 6.2

PeakHour 6.2 runs on macOS 14.6 and later. The Advisor section and The Internet › need macOS 26 or later.

Main window

• One scroll view. The main window grows with its sections, up to the height of your screen, then scrolls. Drag its side to change the width. See Main View.
• Arrange the sections. Drag a section header to move the Usage Monitor, the Internet Dashboard, the Advisor or the Monitors. Show or hide them with Show Sections in the footer, the menu of a section header, or Settings → Display → Main Window. Your layout syncs with iCloud. See Customize the main window.
• Advisor section. Your grade, the issues that hold it back, the sites outside your network that don’t respond, your grade over the last 2 hours, and links to each page of the Advisor, in the look of the Advisor window. While it is expanded, the grade shows only there. See Advisor Section.
• Collapsed sections show a summary. A collapsed dashboard shows the Internet status and the latency of each hop. A collapsed Advisor shows its status and a small grade timeline. See Collapsed sections.
• One Monitors section. Bandwidth, latency and Wi-Fi Signal monitors share one section and one header. Shared Y-Axis Scale has a choice for each unit: Bandwidth and Latency. See Monitors.
• Offline label. When this Mac has no network, or most of your Internet sites don’t respond, a red label drops down: No Network or No Internet. Back Online shows how long the outage lasted. See When you are offline.
• Scroll bars. Drag the thin scroll bar of a graph to look back in time. The main window shows a vertical scroll bar, as set in System Settings → Appearance. See Scroll back in a graph.
• Lighter on your Mac. The main window uses much less of your Mac’s processor, while it is open and while it is hidden.

Internet Dashboard

• One dashboard. The dashboard always shows the full path, from This Mac to the Internet, with the latency of each hop. See Internet Dashboard.
• A narrow layout. In a one-column window, the dashboard shows the path as rows, one under the other. See In a narrow window.
• The Wi-Fi standard. This Mac shows the standard of your Wi-Fi link, for example Wi-Fi 7.
• Your Mac, your icon. This Mac shows an icon of your Mac model: a MacBook, an iMac, a Mac mini, a Mac Studio or a Mac Pro. On a wired connection, it shows the name of the adapter, or Ethernet.
• A pulse on a new grade. The grade pulses once when it changes.

Internet sites

• Up to 10 sites. The Internet status now comes from a list of up to 10 sites, in place of three fixed hosts. Choose sites that you use. See Internet Sites.
• One clear rule. Each site is judged against its own normal latency. The Internet latency is the median of the sites. The Internet is unavailable only when more than half of the sites fail. See How the sites make the status.
• See which site has a problem. The status names a failing site, for example Netflix not responding. Click Internet on the dashboard to see each site, with Edit Sites… and The Internet ›. See The Internet Sites popover.
• Internet Sites in Settings. Add, remove and restore the sites in Settings → Dashboard → Internet Sites, from more than 50 sites in groups such as Work & Video Calls, Gaming and AI Tools, or any host. See Internet Sites.
• Add a site from the Configuration Assistant. A new latency monitor starts with the Internet Site card, which adds the site to the Internet status. See Configuration Assistant: Latency.
• Your own monitors as sites. Turn on Internet Site in the settings of a latency monitor from your ISP to a host. See Use a latency monitor as a site.
• Setup asks about your sites. First Time Setup asks what you use the Internet for, and suggests sites. After the upgrade, a card asks you one time to choose your sites. See Choose your sites.
• A site fails only for a reason. A site counts as failing after 3 lost pings in a row, or 10 seconds with no reply. One lost ping, for example during a speed test, no longer turns the dashboard red. When pings are blocked, PeakHour reaches the site with a secure HTTPS request. See How the sites make the status.
• A custom host is checked first. When you add a host, PeakHour checks that it replies, and warns you when it doesn’t.

A fairer grade on Wi-Fi

• The median of your last tests. The responsiveness in the grade is the median of up to your last 3 speed tests on the same access point, so one slow test doesn’t set your grade for hours. See How the grade works.
• A slow upload on this Mac’s Wi-Fi. When uploads slow your connection down because this Mac’s Wi-Fi link sends slowly, the Advisor says so: On this Mac’s Wi-Fi. It suggests that you move closer to the access point, use another one, or test over a cable.
• A fair Speed Test verdict. The Speed Test page no longer says that your Wi-Fi limits the speed when the test is faster than the Wi-Fi estimate. See Your plan.
• Dead sites in red. The Internet page of the Advisor shows a site that doesn’t respond in red, with No response or Host not found. See The routes.

Wi-Fi Signal monitor

• A new monitor. Graph the Tx rate, the SNR and the signal of this Mac’s Wi-Fi, second by second. Add it from + in the Monitors header: choose Wi-Fi Signal. See Wi-Fi Signal Monitor.
• See when the Wi-Fi drops. A red band marks the time when your Mac was not on Wi-Fi. The time of a sleep is hatched.
• History and CSV. The History view keeps each series, with its average and its range, and exports them to CSV. See Wi-Fi Signal monitors.

Speed Test

• Run a test from the ISP card. Click Test Again on the ISP card of the dashboard. The card stays open, and shows the result when the test ends. See ISP.
• Use results as available bandwidth. Let each speed test set the available bandwidth of your Internet Gateway. Turn it on in Settings → Dashboard → Speed Test. See Use results as available bandwidth.
• Offline. While this Mac is offline, the speed test buttons are grey, and their tooltip says why.

PeakHour Remote

• Each Internet site has its own row under Internet on the Dashboard tab, with its status and latency.
• One Monitors section on the Monitors tab, in the order of the main window, with the Wi-Fi Signal monitor. See PeakHour Remote.

Fixes

• A latency history export to CSV no longer has two header lines.
• When most of your Internet sites fail, the status and the Advisor now say how many, for example 2 of 3 not responding.