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WiFi Seeker, Finder, Detector Roundup

Posted by timothy on from the beat-me-to-it dept.

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."

3 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. encrypted? by VE3ECM · · Score: 5, Informative
    Well, only one of the devices is able to detect if a node is running encryption.

    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. Hm.. by kaitou · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  3. Don't buy the original Kensington finder! by GekkePrutser · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    I've got one myself, bought it about a year ago in a typical airport impulse purchase :-) 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 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 :-)