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Monitor Your Network from Your Home Screen

By Paul Snyman · Published · Updated · 6 min read

Opening an app every time you want to check your network is one step too many. With PingKit's home screen widgets, your most important network information is always visible - no tapping required. And with Siri Shortcuts, you can run diagnostics with your voice.

Every PingKit Surface Outside the App

PingKit puts network information in five places that are not the app itself: four Home Screen widgets, a Lock Screen accessory, two Control Center controls, two Live Activities, and a complication on the Apple Watch. Each one is a short version of something the app shows in full, so the Connection Status tile pairs the connection type with the local IP address that the My Network view lists alongside the gateway, subnet mask, DNS resolver and public IP.

What follows is the complete list, with what each one actually shows.

The Four Home Screen Widgets, and the Lock Screen One

Each widget is a short version of something the app already shows in full, so the Connection Status tile pairs the connection type with the local IP address that the My Network view lists alongside the gateway, subnet mask, DNS resolver and public IP.

Speed Test

Your most recent speed test: download, upload and ping. It updates after each test you run in the app, so the numbers on the Home Screen are the numbers you last measured rather than a live reading. Useful when you are watching a new connection settle, comparing router positions, or checking whether you are getting what you pay for. The full tool is Speed Test.

Connection Status

Your current connection type and your local IP address. A glance tells you whether you are on Wi-Fi or on cellular, and which address you hold. It does not show the network's name: iOS does not give an app the Wi-Fi network name without a location prompt, and PingKit deliberately does not raise one to read an SSID.

Quick Actions

One tap into the tools you use most. The widget does not run anything itself; it opens PingKit directly on that tool, which saves the two or three taps of getting there through the Tools tab.

Ping Target

Pin one host and see its latest ping result on the Home Screen. This is the one to use for a server, a NAS or a router you care about, because it keeps a single address in front of you instead of asking you to type it each time. The full tool is Ping Test.

Connection Status on the Lock Screen

The same connection status as an accessory widget, in the three Lock Screen shapes iOS offers: circular, rectangular and inline. It is a separate widget in the gallery rather than a size of the Home Screen one, so look for it when you are editing the Lock Screen rather than the Home Screen.

Two Control Center Controls

On iOS 18 and later, PingKit adds two controls to Control Center: Speed Test and Ping Gateway. Both open the app and start immediately, which is the honest description: a control cannot run a network measurement on its own, so what it saves you is the navigation, not the launch.

The Add a Control gallery on iPhone, filtered to PingKit, showing the two controls PingKit adds to Control Center: Speed Test and Ping Gateway.
The Add a Control gallery, filtered to PingKit. Ping Gateway needs no address: the app resolves the router itself, so the same control does the right thing on every network you join.

Ping Gateway is the more useful of the two, because it needs no address. The app resolves your router itself when it opens, so the same control does the right thing on every network you join.

Two Live Activities

A running speed test or ping appears as a Live Activity on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, so you can watch a long test without keeping the app in front of you. Watch Mode, which keeps an eye on a connection while you do something else, has its own Live Activity as well.

The Apple Watch Complication

The Watch app carries one complication, PingKit Status, described in the gallery as network health at a glance. It is a status readout, not a tool: the Watch does not run a scan, a traceroute or a port scan.

How to Add Them

  1. Touch and hold the Home Screen until the icons wiggle.
  2. Tap the + button in the corner, or tap Edit and then Add Widget.
  3. Search for PingKit in the gallery.
  4. Pick the widget and the size you want, then tap Add Widget and place it.
  5. Tap Done.

For the Lock Screen accessory, touch and hold the Lock Screen instead, tap Customise, choose the lock screen, and tap one of the slots under the clock. For the Control Center controls, swipe down from the top-right corner, tap +, then Add a Control, and search for PingKit.

The Siri Phrases, Exactly as They Are

PingKit registers eight App Shortcuts, and they work the moment the app is installed with nothing to set up. These are the phrases, verbatim; a paraphrase will not always match:

Each has a second wording as well, so "Test my internet speed with PingKit" and "What's on my network with PingKit" both work. There is no traceroute, Wake-on-LAN or Bonjour phrase: those three tools have no App Shortcut, so asking Siri for them will not find one.

All eight run without opening the app, and each appears in the Shortcuts app as a block you can drop into an automation. Two that are worth building:

What None of This Does

Worth being plain about, because a widget implies more than it delivers. None of these surfaces monitors anything in the background. iOS gives an app seconds of background time, not hours, so a widget shows the last value the app recorded and refreshes on the system's schedule rather than on yours. Something that watches a network continuously has to be always on, which on PingKit means the free PingKit Agent for Mac, with PingKit Guardian bringing its alerts to the iPhone.

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