This reminds me of some of the home made directional wi-fi antennas. The most classic is the "cantenna", a directional antenna made out of a pair of tin cans. Then a lot of people have been able to get miles of range using modified Primestar or DirectTV dishes.

asian cookware has alternate uses

[www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz]

I might pull the trigger on this one, seeing as their FAQ section states:

"If you find that Wi-Fire's performance is still not adequate for your needs, we make it simple and convenient to return your order"

but why sell 2 different versions for Mac and PC? The hardware is the same, just include both drivers/software with 1 product...

"hField Technologies claims that the Wi-Fire can increase your wireless range up to 1000 feet"

The only part of this that matters is the "up to"

This was developed by an Integrated Business and Enginnering (IBE) group at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.

I attend school there and I am a member of the same program. Although the guys who created this company were a few years ahead of me, I had the opportunity to experience one of their product presentations.

There are obvious befits to having a high-sensitivity WiFi chipset + directional antenna, especially on the college campuses where this was proposed. I just wish they could bring the price down some and release only one version of it too!

I recently setup a friend with wifi over 3 miles of water. Using 2 Linksys WRT-54GL routers and DD-WRT firmware, we created a wifi bridge with some Yagi Antennas. A local Airport base station on the other end, and all set. He gets about 800kb/s full duplex. Sure beats a dialup modem. Only cost about $300 with the antennas, mounts, and the Linksys boxes.

somebody out there with $80 to spare just buy this see if it works then return it to make the company's hope in there product being a success go down, way down. and then tell us how it did

i've got one, had it about 6 months. the main problem with it is you need a good signal before you can boost it.

and if you have a good signal, why do you need this?

I'm a bit puzzled by the skepticizm in the above article/ post.

I worked with hField on this project when it was in it's preliminary stages to figure out the actual exterior design of the device and explore possilble mounting solutions for mounting the Wi-Fire on different laptops, or hooking it up to Boxes.
I also was the designer for the packaging for the fist generation Wi-Fire, wich sold for $150.

I am a Still a Lehigh Student, and I can tell you that the IBE program at Lehigh is very strict with it's teams. hField would not have gotten as far as it has without proving the success of the device, and they have done just that.
In the first stages hField build about 100 devices and had a beta group of Lehigh and i believe Lafayette Students test the device and provide feedback. The feedback was positive and hField has moved forward. They only had a windows version as of a year ago, the Mac version is totally new, and I am very excited for them.

You need to give hField a lot of credit for what they did. They found a market that has pretty much been ignored by the wireless industry, and they designed, engineerd, and put to market an innovative device that will help make peoples day a little bit better.

I've seen the WiFire in action, it works, but I only say the very first versions, which were the size of a standard peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and were taped together. But even when they looked like crazy engineering works in progress, it worked mavelously.

So there you have the evidence. Also feel free to check out the Lehigh Website, there are several articles on hField there.

meh, if they take paypal I guess I'll bite. hanging a USB dongle on the handle of my screen door and leeching isn't getting me great reception, so hopefully this will serve me a little better.

@discounteggroll: "serve me a little better" - as in "make me a better leecher"? : ^)

I've talked with the guy who invented this at a function at LeHigh. Like Angelo I got into the Integrated Business and Engineering program (IBE) (but decided to go to Purdue instead... BOILER UP!), and this guy talked about how it evolved from one of those "cantennas" mentioned earlier, and with some modern materials and the right business model he just started up hfield technologies and here's the product.

I will admit, I haven't actually tested it, but I pretty much know the science behind it and its good stuff.

I've had one of these for about a year and have used it off and on in different areas of town (metropolitan area) to see if it helped at times. it seems hit or miss as to whether or not it help my connnection, mostly miss; if i could get a signal with this I could usually also get one without it and rarely found that I could get a good signal with this antenna if I couldn't get one without.