Kensington Wi Fi Finder

[robhodgen]

I bought a Kinsington Wi Fi Finder from Circuit City last night.

At first it didn't seem to work so well. It didn't show our home network right away. We thought it was junk. After reading the FAQ from the Kensington web page, found out it is not supposed to show secure networks. Out network is secure with 128 bit WEP. When we turned off the WEP the Wi Fi Finder picked it up instantly.

Today we went war driving with a sony VAIO laptop with Netstumbler. We found 25 networks in our neighborhood. The Wi Finder found 21 out of the 25. THe 4 it didn't show were secure. It seemed to be more sensitive than the laptop picking up the signal first and losing it last.

After reading the previous posts and the Gadgeteer review I wasn't optimistic about it's performance. Circuit City has always been good about taking stuff back. I figured if it didn't work I'd return it.

Looks like I'm gonna keep it.

Maybe the Gadgeteer got ahold of a lemon. But I was lucky. Your mileage may vary. I'd only buy it from someone who is good about taking returns.

[gr8sct]

I also purchased the wi fi finder. I ran into the same situation. At my home network wich also uses wep was not detected with the device. But when I deactivated it all the lights lit up. I was also at a mall and detected a wifi signal. I found it was comming from a kiosk promoting its high speed internet. So I whiped out my clie and was able to connnect to the internet. I walked over to the kiosk and saw the wireless router. So looks like this thing works. Hope to see one day that it displays the SSID.

[robhodgen]

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a program like net stumbler for the clie.

Then we wouldn't need something the Wi Fi finder.

[idf]

Anybody able to find a UK retailer for this product?
I cannot even see it on the UK Kensington site for some strange reason?
Thanks in advance,

[n2ifp]

There is another brand out which looks very similar, probably will have to search for it in a previous post.

[robhodgen]

I dont know if there is a Circuit City in the UK.

That is were I bought it.

http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.jsp?c=1&b=g&qp=0087608910857&bookmark=bookmark_0&oid=75346&catoid=-10123

[idf]

Nope - No Circuit City
Not planning on any trips either - shame looks good and reasonably priced. I must work over here too!

[n2ifp]

Best Buy sells them too

[lostether]

I saw it a CircuitCity for $29.99. Probably can get it for less somewhere, but even at that price it is a pretty small investment for something as cool as this. It just oozes Geek-ness.

[Unreguser]

This product may be more useful for laptop user but for clie user it is debatable. It is as much easy to pop in your wifi card and turn on your clie as taking out the kensington wifi finder. But it not the case with your laptop computer. You have to open your lapton and turn on the power and then wait for your windows to load up (that takes a while) then load your internet browser etc.

[n2ifp]

Well, the one caveat is that the Clie times out after awhile.

Easier to use a keychain device too. ;)