Network diagnostics for AV and mirroring setups

When mirroring fails, the person troubleshooting it — usually an AV tech or an IT support staffer — has no tool that tells them whether the problem is the wifi channel, device discovery (mDNS multicast blocking), bandwidth saturation, or a protocol mismatch. They're checking phone settings, rebooting Apple TVs, and manually entering IP addresses because the mirroring software itself gives them nothing useful. One complaint describes manually entering IP addresses because auto-discovery doesn't work; another describes the software 'forgetting' the selected monitor and broadcasting to the wrong one.

This gap exists because the mirroring software vendors have no incentive to build deep diagnostics — it would expose that their product is fragile on typical enterprise wifi, where VLAN separation and mDNS isolation are standard. The network team blames the AV equipment. The AV team blames the network. The IT support person in the middle has no data.

Current general-purpose network tools show packet loss and bandwidth but know nothing about AirPlay service discovery, Miracast negotiation handshakes, or why a Bonjour device advertisement is being dropped at a managed switch. The gap is not 'network monitoring' broadly — it's AV-protocol-aware diagnostics that translate raw network behavior into actionable fixes a non-network-engineer can act on.

This recurs constantly: every time a room is reconfigured, a new VLAN is added, firmware updates, or a new device is introduced, the fragile mDNS/multicast plumbing breaks again. Each incident generates support tickets and wastes 30-90 minutes of combined IT and AV time.

What to build

Build a macOS/Windows agent that runs on a network and passively monitors AirPlay, Miracast, and Google Cast discovery traffic — surfacing exactly why a device isn't visible to a sender (multicast blocked, wrong VLAN, IP conflict, firewall rule) and outputting a one-page fix report an IT generalist can hand to a network admin.

Where to start

Sell first to AV integrators who install conference room systems — they get called back every time a room breaks and currently have no diagnostic tool; this saves them billable callback visits and gives them something to show clients.

The hard part

Getting passive visibility into mDNS and multicast traffic requires either a device on each network segment or SPAN port access — both require IT cooperation to deploy, which means your first customer has to trust you before you've proven value.

How it makes money

Annual license per site (not per device) — integrators pay for each client site they manage, with a reseller margin built in.