However when moving between airport and train station getting the laptop fired up just to see if you can find some WiFi hotspot to leech off is a pain in the backside and that's where the latest gadget from Linksys comes into play, their WUSBF54G WiFi finder.

Some WiFi finders are bulky, some find a signal and don't tell you if its a secured network or not and others are just WiFi finders and still require you to have a WiFi card for your laptop. Luckily the Linksys WUSBF54G is none of these starting with its small size, the Linksys WiFi finder is a bout the size of your average USB memory stick and still it manages to cram in a useable LCD screen.

Press the on / off switch which wakes up the finder and the screen flickers to life which then runs off its own internal Lithium Ion battery making the device truly mobile. Sending the Sniffer off to do its job is as simple as hitting the scan button, the WUSBF54G will then collect up to 15 WiFi 802.11b /g networks within its memory. Using the scroll button you can then flick through them on the screen seeing the SSID, network strength, encryption type. This works a treat and quickly enables you to hunt down those unsecured networks that may give you some vital free megabytes to collect that email.

However we'd still like to see some form of probing the network to see if it has WWW access, this must be fairly simple as many home gateways now have an "internet" light which indicates a successful ping of a pre determined site. This little extra would enable you not only to find an unsecured network but also one which can connect you to the web. Using the Linksys in various public places we found it was very adept at hunting down WiFi signals even relatively weak ones, in fact we twice were able to detect networks with the USB device that we couldn't find with our laptop, not sure if this is a good or a bad thing?

The Linksys WUSBF54G also doubles up as a WiFi adaptor for machines that do not have an inbuilt WiFi card, connecting the USB socket turns the WiFi finder into a full TX / RX unit capable of the full 54g standard although real world use may be around 15mbits which is more than plenty for your average WiFi hotspot.

The overall build quality is very good and this is shown in the small but important touches like the cap over the USB connector which is a tight fit meaning you shouldn't lose it easily, plus the corporate Linksys styling and the supplied dock with extended USB cable justify the higher price than other WiFi finders we have tested. All in all a nice device that does what it says on the tin and a must for those who travel and expect to survive on someone else's connection!

Published - 30/03/2006

More WiFi Gadgets-

[ Up ] [ Belkin Bluetooth USB Dongle ] [ Linksys wireless pci card WPC54G ] [ Netgear ADSL Wireless Router ] [ Linksys Wireless G Broadband Router ] [ TDK Bluetooth Plus PCMCIA Card ] [ Netgear WGT634U Wireless Media Router ] [ Netgear WG121 USB Wireless Adaptor ] [ Linksys WVC54G ] [ Netgear WG111 Wireless USB ] [ Netgear WG511T 108mbps wifi card ] [ Netgear HDX101 Review ] [ Solwise Homeplug Ethernet Over Mains ] [ Linksys WUSBF54G WiFi Finder ] [ BT Voyager 2000 Wireless ADSL Modem ] [ Linksys WAG54GX2 ] [ Belkin Bluetooth Access Point ] [ Logitech MX3100 ] [ Zoom 4300 Bluetooth Modem ] [ Belkin Bluetooth PCMCIA Card ] [ Buffalo Broadband Wireless Router ]