It’s been three years since I reviewed my favorite WiFi scanner / finder, Canary Wireless’s Digital Hotspotter. I’ve reviewed other scanners, but always liked the Hotspotter best due to its one button super fast scanning ability. That’s why I was very happy when the folks at Canary Wireless sent me their 2nd generation Digital Hotspotter HS-20 to review.
Wi-Fi finders or detectors are nifty little gadgets to keep in your gear bag for those times when you want to scope out nearby hotspots, without booting up your laptop or traversing menus on your WiFi enabled phone / PDA. These finders are typically small pocket friendly devices, whose sole purpose is to report information regarding detectable hotspots. I have one today from StarTech.com that not only will help you find nearby access points (hotspots), but can turn your computer into one.
We have had several WiFi finder reviews posted here on The Gadgeteer. They are great little tools that make finding a WiFi hotspot an easy task. At least easier than the chore of booting up your laptop and checking manually for available networks. Of the 3 reviews (Canary, Kensington and Smart ID) that I’ve personally [...]
Whoo hoo, another WiFi sniffer review! Come on, you can never get enough reviews of WiFi detectors. Since this is my third such review, I now consider myself a WiFi savant. Ok, not really… but I have learned a little bit about these gadgets and it’s my job to convey that info to you. [...]
About a year ago, I reviewed the first of the stand-alone WiFi detection devices to hit the market, the Kensington WiFi Finder, a neat little (3” long) product whose main drawback was that it didn’t work. Subsequently, I found (on The-Gadgeteer.com, of course!) the Smart ID WiFi Detector, a somewhat larger (4”x2.25”x.625”) and clunkier (1.82 [...]
Fans of wireless networking (otherwise known as WiFi, 802.11b, or g) will probably have heard the term Warchalking before. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this term, warchalking is the practice of marking a series of symbols on sidewalks and walls to indicate nearby wireless access points. When these symbols are seen [...]
It is fairly annoying to try to locate new places where your WiFi equipped laptop or PDA will pick up a signal, if you don’t want to continually set it up and experiment (perhaps attracting curious onlookers who then smirk when you can’t get a signal). My experience with Starbucks, hotel, and other hotspot [...]