We have finally gotten our hands on the new Wi-Fire from hField Technologies. This new version of the Wi-Fire is smaller and lighter than the old Wi-Fire. The adapter is still fairly large for a wireless adapter.
When you open the box you will find a standard USB 2.0 cable, the Wi-Fire, an installation guide, and an installation CD.
The software that comes with the Wi-Fire is pretty useful since it shows the exact percentages of signal strength, unlike the windows utility where you can only see how many bars of signal you have. The Wi-Fire software also allows you to connect to networks an make profiles, which can automatically connect you to networks. The software can also graph the signal strength of a number of networks so that you can point the Wi-Fire in the best direction for the network that you want to connect to. The Wi-Fire is directional, which means that you have to point it towards the network that you want to connect to to get the best signal strength. This can also be a good thing because it gives you a better signal strength for that network. The Wi-Fire can be attached to your computer screen but it is hard at first to figure out how to attach it. It can also be placed and rotated to get the best signal strength. I would suggest leaving it on your desk.
Overall, installing the Wi-Fire is fairly easy. Once installed you can either use the hField Technologies utility or any other WiFi Utility. Now for the fun part; testing it. For our tests we used a Atheros AR5007EG wireless g wireless adapter, a D-Link DWA-140 RangeBooster N wireless n wireless adapter, and of course, the Wi-Fire. We tested to see how many networks the Wi-Fire can detect and how far away it really can detect a network and if the Wi-Fire really could connect to a network from 1,000 feet away.
Test 1:
In our first test we tested if you really could find more networks using the Wi-Fire than a regular wireless adapter. With the Atheros AR5007EG Wireless g wireless adapter we found 5 wireless networks, all of which were secured. With the D-Link DWA-140 RangeBooster N wireless n wireless adapter we found 6 wireless networks, one of which was unsecured but we were not able to connect to, and with the Wi-Fire we found 10 networks, 2 were unsecure, and we were able to connect to 1 of the unsecure networks. We have now established that the Wi-fire really can detect more networks than wireless g or wireless n.
Test 2:
In our second test we are going to see if the Wi-Fire can detect a test network from 300, 700, and 1,000 feet away. This test was done with absolutely no obstructions and the Wi-Fire was pointing directly at the wireless router. We tested this with the same wireless cards as the first test and a Belkin wireless g router. Here are the results; at 300 feet wireless g detected our test network at 40%, wireless n detected it at 55%, and the Wi-Fire detected it at 80%. At 700 feet wireless g and wireless n did not detect our network, and the Wi-Fire detected it at 60%. At 1,000 feet, which hField Technologies claim the Wi-Fire can reach, wireless g and wireless n did not detect it, an the Wi-fire detected the test network with 10% signal strength.
Conclusion:
It turns out that the Wi-Fire really does have better range than wireless g and even wireless n. Some of the bad features of the Wi-Fire are that it is directional, which means that you have to point it to the network that you want to connect to. It is also pretty big for a wireless adapter. Other than that thw Wi-Fire from Hfield Technologies is a great gadget for getting free wireless internet.
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