NetHero has a lofty goal as a networking app: helping those mystified by home networking issues solve their connection problems. And this Windows app definitely has some useful capabilities, including informative network discovery of connected devices, real-time monitoring and alerts, and simple remote network monitoring. The problem is that the NetHero's ability to actually perform fixes on those network problems is virtually nonexistent. Instead, it forces its target audience—those mystified home users—to do it all themselves. I tested the Windows app, but NetHero is also available for Android, iOS, and Mac.

Getting Started

You can get the app from the  NetHero website, iTunes, or Google Play. I downloaded the desktop version for Windows. The download file was quite large, at about 60MB. Installation on my Windows 8 laptop was issue-free and quick. Upon launching the app, I was prompted to either log in using my Facebook account or to create a NetHero account. I opted for the latter. The app flashes a message telling you to make sure you only create one account per household network.

After I signed in, NetHero asked if I was currently connected to my home network. Selecting Yes initiated a discovery of every device connected to my network. I only have a few devices connected at home, so discovery was quick. To really test the discovery speed, I installed NetHero on my work test network, which has at least 15-20 connected devices (including virtual machines). The discovery process was still fast. 

Troubleshooting
NetHero opens to a dashboard view with a clean, modern, and easy-to-navigate interface. The largest, most prominent part of this view is a pane showing information about the device on which I installed the app (my Windows 8 laptop). I could see two critical alerts; one cited low storage availability, and the other (correctly) informed me that I had no firewall protection.