Wi Fi Hotspot detector recommendations please

furndire

Any suggestions which one to buy. We are going travelling shortly, and one would be useful rather than having to open up the laptop as we will have limited battery/electric use

trotter09

furndire wrote: »

Any suggestions which one to buy. We are going travelling shortly, and one would be useful rather than having to open up the laptop as we will have limited battery/electric use

Thanks for this post! Didn't know there was such a thing as a hotspot detector but it would be very useful. Will investigate.

furndire

I've found several different types when googling, but wondered if anyone was using one, and how reliable it is.

kwikbreaks

What are you hoping for from one - all they are really much use for is picking the best table in MaccyD's etc. for signal strength as their range is even less than your laptop.

furndire

So the range in them is not that good then?

kwikbreaks

No they are all short range just the same as any WiFi device without a huge antenna and they don't usually have any antenna at all. Plus they won't distinguish between public and encrypted so you'd still need to fire up the laptop.

dave461_2

I bought a cheap windows mobile wifi phone last year. Worked great for checking emails on. Have you not got wifi on your phone?

tronator

furndire wrote: »

Any suggestions which one to buy. We are going travelling shortly, and one would be useful rather than having to open up the laptop as we will have limited battery/electric use

Forget all the above

I have a Vunex WiFiWalker which I bought from Ebuyer about 2 years ago. Unfortunately they don't sell it anymore. It can detect the networks around you, the signal strength and the kind of encryption, although it mixes up WEP and WPA sometimes. It can also act as a USB WiFi dongle.

If you have a smartphone then there are tons of apps which can do this.

scotsbob

I use a programme called "WiFiFoFum" version 2, on my mobile, always works for me.

If you search on Google I am sure you will find one to download.

Also you could look on Youtube for "wifi sniffers" there you will se the programmes demonstrated.

furndire

Thanks folks - travelling round France Spain etc, so don't want to use mobile

John_Gray

I have a couple of versions of the ZyXEL AG-225H WiFi Hotspot Finder which shows network name, channel, encryption (if any), B, G or A band, and signal strength; also can act as a wireless dongle, or a wireless access point. But I think they've been off the market for a couple of years now. Originally about £50 they were being sold off at about £12...

At the time I remember that some of the other WiFi finders on sale were cheap, and rubbish. This is unlikely to have changed, so beware.