By Claus Hetting, WiFi NOW CEO & Chairman
Entrepreneurs will tell you that money makes the world go around – but perhaps it is really passion that makes it rotate the fastest. Case in point: The new WLAN Pi Go is a Wi-Fi measurement multi-tool that piggy-backs on a smartphone and pretty much runs the full gamut of tests that a professional Wi-Fi engineer needs. The new tool is the sixth WLAN Pi testing device created by the non-profit WLAN Pi team since 2016.
The new WLAN Pi Go is the sixth iteration of the popular open-source, community-created Wi-Fi engineering tool – and this time the team of WLAN Pi creators has gone to new lengths to make their latest product as light and convenient as possible: The credit-card-sized WLAN Pi Go uses MagSafe to snap to the back of an iPhone and draws power from the phone’s battery via USB-C. It can even be fitted with the optional ‘Wi-Spy Lucid’ spectrum analyser.
The creators say that the super compact and low-cost measurement solution does pretty much everything a professional Wi-Fi engineer needs for troubleshooting, validation, and maintenance of Wi-Fi networks. The WLAN Pi Go does not have a screen and instead pairs with the WLAN Pi App. Functionality can be extended with other apps, such as the Wi-Fi Explorer Pi App (currently in beta) or Airtool Pi App for deeper analysis and packet capture.
“On behalf of the WLAN Pi team – and we’re all volunteers – I want to highlight that we’re doing this to provide the community with something useful for their day jobs and for education as well. WLAN Pi products were born out of a community project where passionate Wi-Fi engineers came together to create something for the benefit of the wider community of WLAN professionals. The benefit from being involved is that we get to create something affordable and targeted to the needs of our friends in the community,” says Ben Toner of Numerous Networks, one of about a dozen contributors to the project.
Perhaps the biggest benefit is that the device lends itself extremely well to learning. The software is open source and with that the system encourages people to look at how the tools are built and enhance their Wi-Fi learning, the creators say. “The community has used WLAN Pi products to create their own test setups in the past. Let’s see what they do with the WLAN Pi Go,” Ben Toner says.
The new WLAN Pi Go incorporates the Intel BE200 Wi-Fi 7 chipset and has even been certified by the FCC for passive scanning. Network design software provider Hamina allows the WLAN Pi Go to be used as a survey device and the Go also comes with an API to extract – for example – raw measurement data, the creators say. The WLAN Pi Go is available for purchase from BadgerWiFi in the UK for 410 UK pounds or from BIG QAM in US for US$550.
The current family of WLAN Pi products also includes the ready-to-use M4 and the R4 if you prefer building your own device. Training on the WLAN Pi platform will be offered as part of the #WLPC Express two-day deep dive event colocated with Wi-Fi World Congress Dubai on November 17-19. For more information on #WLPC Express Dubai see here and contact Keith Parsons for tickets.
/Claus.
