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WiFi Seeker, Finder, Detector Roundup
captainJam points to this review at handtops.com of five reasonably priced hardware WiFi finders. A snippet: "If you're not using a WiFi enabled PDA, you either have to turn on your handtop or laptop, or wake it from standby just to check if there's a network in the area. While a WiFi Finder / Seeker won't make a connection out of thin air, it will conveniently tell you whether there is a WiFi network in the area."
At about 2X the cost of the cheapest one (50 vs. 25 bucks), it's easily worth the expense.
I dunno about you, but the amount of time it would take me to get my laptop out of my bag, fire it up, and try to connect isn't minor.
The ability to show if I'm wasting my time or not is worth the extra 25 bucks.
2. "I wonder if someone else has a WiFi connection in my appartment block that is causing problems with my laptop connection to my home network" (do they interfere? Or can you just choose which to connect to?)
3. "Does this library have WiFi?" (Yeah, I know. Ask at the desk. But what kind of self-respecting geek asks, when he/she can find out for him/herself?)
Laugh. It's funny.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, however, there is.
That sort of thing would probably be pretty useless here in NYC.
The problem is, that a lot of networks -seem- open, but require a login once you are connected, and around here, you are never far from a signal, so I just never found it worthwhile to plunk down the $30 or so they ask for them.
The only one of them that I find interesting is the Canary one, which actualy has an LCD that shows you the SSID of the network. But I am not sure it's worth the $50 to me, but it's a much better value then any of the "if the light blinks, you got WiFi" ones.
Lo and behold, a few blocks from the hotel we found our first wifi hotspot, only to find it was secure. We walked on only to find another secure hotspot. After walking the French Quarter for the next 2 hours we had found several hotspots, but none that we could tap into. Now we realized that we really should have been partying.
Why can't someone build a WiFi detector that finds the hotspot, flashes if its open and blinks if it can be subscribed to?
From the article:
The only thing that seems to be missing is detection of whether the network is locked down by MAC address. Isn't the device described above approximately what you are looking for?
The article says that it couldn't test the original Kensington finder, but that they only heard bad news about it. This is true according to my experiences.
:-) This is the grey-metallic creditcard-sized one with 3 lights. Unfortunately it sucks, the lights are way too dim to be seen in any sunlight and the button is so weak it gets pressed in your pocket and wastes battery power. Besides that it detects any bluetooth phone as well and doesn't mention the difference (so it seems WiFi is detected).
:-)
I've got one myself, bought it about a year ago in a typical airport impulse purchase
I've also seen situations where I was able to get a WiFi connection on my laptop and the finder showed none, and the other way around (probably because it detected a bluetooth signal). I can't recommend it at all!
Just my 2 cents
Oh yes. I just keep the laptop running while inside its nice leather carrying case. I use Kismet and it will tell me the SSID, MAC address, and GPS coordinates so I can find it again later.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?