Zyxel's all-singing, all dancing Wi-Fi detector

By on 27 October 2005, 11:06am

The Zyxel AG-225H Wi-Fi finder and USB adaptor is a neat little device that combines two different wireless tasks. You can use it to detect Wi-Fi networks -- and then plug it into your network as a Wi-Fi card and connect to that network. It has many of the properties that Crave appreciates. It is:

• Comically packaged
The iron law is that the smaller the device, the bigger the box. This gizmo is about the size of a packet of chewing gum, but it comes a box the size of a decent paperback dictionary. We lift up huge cardboard boxes as though blessed with the physical strength of gorillas, only to open them to discover a small pair of in-ear headphones and enough bubble-wrap to keep our copy editor amused for weeks. It's nouvelle cuisine all over again: a little bit of nothing in a big white box.

• Easy to use
The gadget monkeys at Crave have the attention spans of, well, monkeys. So we like it when we can take something out of a box, press a button and see something happen. Forget talk of manuals, install disks and quick-start guides: we want instant gratification immediately, if not sooner, or even before then. The Zyxel AG-225H has what it takes to keep us monkeys happy. Simply slide the clearly labelled button to the old-school 'On' position and a cute graphic of a friendly hand appears beside the words 'Wi-Finder'. A few seconds later, the handle of the Crave wireless network appears, 'Duck' (it's not a noun, it's a verb. Think of all those incoming products). We hit another clearly marked button, 'Next', and cycle through the other wireless networks clogging the airwaves around here.

• Over-engineered
This device just gives you so much more than you need. You're hip and happening and techie enough that you want to go around and log on, with promiscuous abandon, to various public Wi-Fi networks, so you need a Wi-Fi finder. You're touring the Internet cafes of the world and you're actually sophisticated enough to want to spot up to 15 different networks. You care about details like WEP and WPA security settings, SSID and the radio channel of detected networks. You want to know network names and signal strength, and this super smart Wi-Finder can tell you all about them. And yet... you still have an ancient pre-Centrino notebook which doesn't have built in wireless connectivity? That must be why you also need it to double as a plug-in USB wireless adaptor. Surely there are about 13 people in the UK who fit this profile? Zyxel just threw in the wireless connectivity just because they could. You know, for kicks.

Next time we're roaming the megalopolis searching for a triple-shot mocha frapuccino with extra liver, we'll feel better knowing that our trusty Zyxel AG-225H is there for us, doing more than we could ever possibly need. -MP