Three WiFi Gadgets That Will Change Your Life

In this grandiosely entitled post we have a look at three WiFi gadgets that could make your mobile life easier, or just help you glow in the dark.

Eye-Fi - Wireless Memory Cards

Eye-Fi produces memory cards with WiFi built in. In essence you are able to upload your pictures automatically to your PC or favourite photo sharing website (e.g. Flickr, Facebook) once you come within range of your regular WiFi network(s). The service that allows for automatic uploading to photo sharing websites, called WebShare, sounds particularly useful. Imagine all the pictures you would finally be able to share effortlessly instead of leaving them on your hard-drive or worse, still on your camera after months, gathering virtual dust.

Eye-Fi comes in 3 versions, Home, Share and Explore. With Home you can upload to your PC at home, share throws in access to WebShare and finally Explore gives you geotagging functionality and complimentary hotspot access in the USA. We can't wait to get our hands on an Eye-Fi SD card, the Share option looks like the one to go for since with Home the pictures will still be stuck on you PC only it will largely happen transparently.

It seems Eye-Fi SD cards have not yet reached South African e-tailers, search results on Digital Planet, kalahari.net and pricecheck.co.za only showed plain vanilla SD cards. The only place we could find Eye-Fi was here on Amazon.com.

Unfortunately Eye-Fi cards will not work with any hotspot network, such as RedButton's network, that require the user to log in via a web browser splash screen (see this Eye-Fi FAQ entry). Allowing access without a browser based login process is something we are not currently working on but we may in future.

Hotspot Detectors / Wi-Fi Finders

There are a number of manufacturers that have released Hotspot Detectors that allow you to check for signal without having to power on your laptop. Why would you ever need one? Well hotspots are not always very well advertised, for various reasons, and these devices make it easy to pick one up. Imagine being in the middle of some town square in a town you don't know and you need to get connected fast and free if possible, you'd look for open networks on your Wi-Fi Finder and probably head to the coffee shop that tops the list in terms of signal strength.

The ZyXel AG-225H Wi-Fi Finder is one that looks half decent. It can do more than just find WiFi, it takes the logical next step and functions as a WiFi adapter.

And Finally...

If Eye-Fi and Wi-Fi Finders don't work for you, why not get the ultimate, a WiFi Detector Shirt? It sports glowing animated bars on the front that dynamically change as the surrounding WiFi signal strength fluctuates. Walk down any WiFied city street at night, perhaps throwing caution to the wind with a quick sprint down a dark alley, and you'll be lighting up like a christmas tree.