How to convert Wifi signal strength from Quality (percent) to RSSI (dBm)?

Question

How should I convert Wifi signal strength from a Quality in percentage, usually 0% to 100% into an RSSI value, usually a negative dBm number (i.e. -96db)?

Answer 1

Im glad I found this post cause I was looking for a way to convert the dbm to percentage. Using David's post, I wrote up a quick script in python to calculate the quality percentage.

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import os
import platform

system = platform.system()
if system == 'Linux':
    cmd = "iwconfig wlan0 | grep Signal | /usr/bin/awk '{print $4}' | /usr/bin/cut -d'=' -f2"
elif system == 'Darwin':
    cmd = "/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -I | grep CtlRSSI | awk '{ print $NF; }"
else:
    print("Unsupported os: {}".format(system))

dbm = os.popen(cmd).read()
if dbm:
    dbm_num = int(dbm)
    quality = 2 * (dbm_num + 100)
    print("{0} dbm_num = {1}%".format(dbm_num, quality))
else:
    print("Wifi router connection signal strength not found")

In order to get the highest wifi quality from where my computer is located, I moved/rotated my antenna until I received the highest quality. To see real time quality, I ran the above script using:

watch -n0.1 "python getwifiquality.py"