Wi-Fire 500mW High-Gain USB Wireless 802.11b/g USB WiFi Adapter – NEW model thats 40% smaller and 30% lighter

10 Review to this product

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  Tim E Robertson
  August 26th, 2010 on 5:59 pm

  Rating

  The number of wireless adapters on the market can make your head spin. They all connect to a USB port in your computer and piggyback on whatever Wi-Fi signal they can reach. Many claim to be long-range. The Wi-Fire says it can pick up a signal 1,000 feet away.

  If you have a laptop, you can drive around your neighborhood and see how this works from your AirPort menu. Every few feet you’ll see the list of available connections expand or contract depending on how many of your neighbors have Internet connections. Of course, most of the time these connections will be (as they should be) password protected, so they won’t get you on the Internet. You wouldn’t want to intrude on your neighbor’s privacy anyway, would you?

  But if you’re on your patio or in the parking lot of a publicly available wireless connection, the issue shifts away from whether you’ll get a connection (of course you will) to how strong that connection will be. What good is a connection if it goes to lunch every five minutes?

  hField Technologies’ Wi-Fire directional antenna can be turned this way and that and is designed with circuitry that, the company claims, will amplify the signal from base stations in the area. This definitely seems to be the case with the one I evaluated.

  I use Macs in my house but keep an old PC in the shed out back. Typically, if I wanted to use the computer in the shed to get on the Internet, I’d take my Linksys Wireless G Adapter out there and plug it into a USB port. Sure, it worked. But when I did the same thing with the Wi-Fire, I repeatedly got a much stronger connection.

  In part, the improvement is probably attributable to the fact that the antenna is omnidirectional. The antenna is a skinny palm-sized rectangle (wider than a Snickers bar and as thick as two Hershey Bars, for those who know their sweets). It has a USB cable attached to the rectangle. This means you can plug the adapter into a USB port and, because of the cable, you can then turn the antenna 360 degrees until you find the strongest signal.

  The Wi-Fire works with Macs and Windows machines. The software that came with mine was out of date but a quick visit to hField’s website produced the latest version. It installed effortlessly and immediately produced a list of available connections along with a bar graph showing the strongest to the weakest.

  Nice.

  The Wi-Fire comes with a little stand (I call it the Lunar Lander) that connects to the top of your laptop. It works but the “feet” on mine kept falling off. Not a big deal because you can sit the antenna almost anywhere but in a pot of soup and it will work.

  MyMac Review Rating: 8 out of 10
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  Elizabeth Grimm
  August 27th, 2010 on 6:17 am

  Rating

  I was having such a hard time with my wireless connection, but once I found out about the Wi-Fire, my problems were solved. I was able to relax in my room and use the internet with ease. Problem Solved. I look forward to using the Wi-Fire whenever possible – wherever possible so I can connect to the internet with confidence. I no longer have to worry about being disconnected!
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  Brian Nelson
  August 28th, 2010 on 7:28 am

  Rating

  Wow this product was amazing! i only get strong wi-fi in one part of my house, but now i can go wherever i want and still get a great signal. Last night I even sat outside in the yard while my friends were playing volleyball, and we could stream YouTube videos. Pretty cool gadget. Five stars from me!
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  J. Simms
  August 28th, 2010 on 8:10 am

  Rating

  Connected the Wi-Fire to my MacBook Pro after downloading the latest drivers; found an amazing THIRTEEN networks where I normally see only two or three at my home. They were all locked, but clearly visible with readings of connection strength shown in the Wi-Fire Connection Manager.

  This lightweight device works as advertised and is a great value for the price. The stats it provides are nice information to have; you can locate and use the strongest open location.

  At the local library where our user group, Annapolis Apple Slice, meets, the connections have often been a problem over the past couple of years; I connected the Wi-Fire and my Mac showed a full signal. Even found a nearby locked network which hadn’t been visible in the past.

  Figuring out the “wings” and how to use them caused a little bit of mystery at the outset.

  I am yet to venture down the highway to see if I can locate open networks in my neighborhood. Last time I tried that was several years ago when my internet was down for several days. Have more experimentation to do.
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  Racedok
  August 28th, 2010 on 2:45 pm

  Rating

  My wireless antenna on my G5 broke during moving. Being 4 years old, it was “obsolete” and I couldn’t just order one from Apple. I got this antenna instead and I am very pleased with it’s performance. So much so, I bought a 2nd one for the Apple my kids use for homework. I recommend hooking it up to the Tripp Lite active extension cable and get it as high in the room as you can. Don’t bother putting it on the computer screen like the photo shows. The active extension cable doubled my reception signal.
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  A. Viviano
  August 28th, 2010 on 5:28 pm

  Rating

  WOW>>>>> I work from home and my office is on the second floor of my home in the front of the house. I got wireless for my laptop thinking it would give me some flexibility to roam through the house for a change of pace…ESPECIALLY IN THE SUMMER. I hoped to relax on my deck in the back yard on nice days as a change of pace. But, I had such a weak signal it was not worth moving from my office. I spent more time rebooting, signing back on and it was so frustrating I gave up. I found this to be the answer. I have a great signal all through my home so that allows me winter use in our downstairs Media room as well as outdoors. I am not high tech and this was so easy to install and set up.
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  Todd
  August 30th, 2010 on 12:59 pm

  Rating

  Tried to use it to connect to Googles free wi-fi in a location where coverage was weak in Mountain View, CA. Could be location but we were unable to connect using this product so returned it. It was worth a try but just didn’t work. The return to Amazon and refund was hassle free…. very much appreciated. We probably wouldn’t have even tried the product without Amazon’s excellent return policy. Thank-you Amazon.
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  Tayk1212
  August 31st, 2010 on 3:41 pm

  Rating

  So I live in an off campus apartment – about 2 streets away from campus – and was having terrible WiFi connection. I would have to sit on my front porch, to the far right to even pick up a weak signal. It was so annoying when I tried to do homework or Skype my friends. I was talking to my parents about installing a WiFi network into my apartment, but they really didn’t want to spend the money and told me to find a better alternative. I was searching around on Amazon (because really, you guys have everything) and found this product. I ordered it because it was really reasonably priced in comparison to the other WiFi adapters. Of course I thought at first that it wasn’t going to work (I mean who knows when buying stuff online), but when I tried it – I was astonished. I could get 85% signal in my room, where normally I got none! I saved so much money, and told my parents about it. They actually just bought one for when they travel and they love it too. We go on long road trips every summer to pretty remote places and the Wi-Fire definitely helps us out there with staying in touch with our normal lives! Glad to say I took the leap and bought the Wi-Fire. More than worth the money!
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  T. Lewis
  August 31st, 2010 on 6:53 pm

  Rating

  I had bought this device for a friend who has a guest house that doesn’t pick up the wireless signal from the main house. Then my cleaning person drove my Dyson vacuum over the cord that leads to my DSL jack, yanking the cord so hard that it shattered the jack and pulled out all the wires. It looked like a tiny bomb went off near my baseboard. I figured I was hosed — and then I remembered I had the WiFire sitting on my closet shelf. Took it down, unwrapped it, fired it up, and I was immediately able to pull down a decent wireless signal from my neighbor’s house, which I have never been able to do previously. (If God didn’t want us to borrow wifi, he wouldn’t give us people who don’t secure their routers.) So while I waited for a week for the phone company to come and put in a new jack, I had Wifi that whole time instead of no Wifi. For me, that alone is easily worth the purchase price. The only reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5 is because (1) it’s a little on the ugly side, and (2) about one time in 10 when I plug into my Macbook Pro, it crashes the computer. I can live with that. It definitely works.
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  Eric Goethals
  September 1st, 2010 on 9:14 pm

  Rating

  The concept is simple. Laptops and WiFi routers broadcast their total energy every direction at 360 degrees. But if you know where the signal comes from why not take all that wasted energy and just broadcast in the direction of where you want it. That is what this directional antenna is all about.

  Once you understand how to tell where the signal is coming from this gadget is designed to resolve the signal even better and send/receive your laptop signal only in/from the direction it needs to go. Therefore, you have much better range than a built-in laptop antenna.

  There are usually a few clueless who can’t get this gadget to work no matter how simplistic things are. I suspect the bad reviews here were from a guy who has issues with his USB port. The other guy who bought this product to connect to just one location doesn’t say whether he tested it at other places too. That guy was not fair to these reviews since he wanted it just for one location and when it was not satisfactory he rates it poorly and sends it back. He does not give any details at all about the situation.

  Anyway, I have had my unit for one year and it is fantastic. My new laptop detects about 8 signals looking down on about 50 houses because I live on a hill. Without the antenna it is not possible to connect to any of the signals. But when I use this gadget, I get about 30 signals that pop up. Two of the signals are unprotected so I can log in. I get 84% signal connecting to a house that is 400 feet away according to Google earth and the connection is really FAST. I cant tell how far the other signals are because they are secured and I would not be able to report on the connection quality.

  Yesterday I tried the antenna from the 4th floor of a hospital. Without it I could see 7 hospital networks, all secured. With it I could see a total of 25 and could connect my laptop for my friend in a hospital bed so he could do his mail.

  I could not recommend this product more. You never know when this thing will come in handy.