Wifi Detector Review: the Canary Wireless "Hotspotter" HS-20
So part of the fun of traveling and working from my laptop is going to be finding good places to connect to the internet. To save myself the awkward situation of wandering the streets with my laptop open, clicking "View Available Wireless Networks," I've purchased a wireless network detector.
To be honest, I'd never heard of one before a month ago but I guess it's not too surprising that somebody's already built it. There must be a fair amount of demand from all those notebook-wielding airport-hopping road warriors. After doing some searching I found that most of them only give you the signal strength of the networks in the area. There are also ones that only give you the info on the first network it finds. Yuck!
I ended up getting the Canary Wireless Digital Hotspotter since it packed the most information into the smallest package. Even though it was a little on the expensive side ($60 + shipping + tax) I told myself it would be invaluable once I arrived in Europe. And I have to say it's been doing a great so far.
Let's start at the shallow end with the physical aspects. The Canary Wireless Hotspotter is a bit smaller than a deck of cards and it wouldn't hurt to be even smaller but it's not bulky by any means. I have to admit, though, the device doesn't seem particularly sturdy. The material feels a little light so you might think it would fall apart quite easily if it was dropped but I've applied a fair amount of pressure on it and even dropped it once or twice and I'm happy to report it's doing just fine.
There are three buttons: one to turn on the power and rescan, and two "up" and "down" buttons for scrolling through the available networks. There's no "power off" button since the device shuts down automatically after 30 seconds of use. No complaints about the buttons.
The screen is just big enough to show you the information you're looking for. In the top right it shows the number of networks available and which one you're currently looking at. Then, for each network it shows the following:
- signal strength bars
- an icon indicating whether it's a secure network
- the name of the network ("MELD" in the photo)
- the type of encryption used (e.g., WEP, WPA, WPA2)
- the network channel and type
Unfortunately, there's no indication of battery life. If you notice that it's not detecting very many networks, it could be a low battery. That said, the batteries are supposed to last three months so that's nice.
When the batteries are fully loaded the wifi detector finds all the same networks I can see from my computer. All the information seems to match—just as you would hope!
All in all, it's been a great device for the few times that I've used it. The real test will come when I'm using it on a near-daily basis!