BW002 Wireless LAN 802.11b USB Adapter
Introduction
Wireless network technology has evolved a great degree since its arrival a few years back. Wireless technology has become so cheap today that it’s not much of an issue for even SOHO users to obtain them. Many companies today have identified the high potential for wireless devices and are racing towards getting their share of the market. In the recent past you would have seen many companies that have sprung up offering cool new wireless devices at extremely competitive prices.
Bluetake is a recently spun off company of the popular cooler manufacture, Thermaltake. Bluetake has been established mainly to cater to the needs of the wireless market. Bluetake specializes in both 802.11b wireless devices and Bluetooth devices, and just a few days back we tested one of their Bluetooth devices, the POKE 2. Today we look at one of their 802.11b wireless devices, the BW 002 Wireless LAN USB adapter.
The Device
I must admit I was quite surprised when I first saw the BW 002 USB adapter. It’s such a small unit and weighs no more than 10grams as I would believe. The unit is silver is color and its length is about the size of your palm. The unit contains a Dipole antenna of around 2 inches length offering greater coverage.
The BW002 is supposed to have a indoor range of 100 meters while it has a 200 meter range outdoors. These claims do not always work out in the real world due to various obstructions which diminish the signal power.
Some of you may wonder what this unit actually does. Well basically the functionality of the BW002 is exactly that offered by a 802.11b wireless PCMCIA card except for the fact that this unit fits into any USB port and offers wireless connectivity to that device. So for example, if you already have a wireless network at home or office and need to provide wireless network access to a machine that has been left out, the BW002 would be an ideal and easy way to do it. Simply plug the unit into the USB port of te machine and VIOLA!!! you’re connected. This is just an example, there are numerous other ways you could put this unit to good use.
Installation of the unit is pretty straight forward. Simply connect the USB cable to the machine and it’ll automatically detect the BW002. Thereafter insert the supplied driver CD and you’re done. Next install the software and you’re ready for action.
The unit was tested using our existing wireless network and as soon as the BW002 was connected to the USB port it automatically detected the network and connected to it. Bluetake also sent us one of their wireless PCMCIA cards for us to test the unit out. Remember that the BW002 does not come with a additional PCMCIA card, so if you need to purchase one it has to be done seperately.
The following screens show the options that are available in the provided software. Also note that the distance with the wireless hub and the BW002 was no more than 20 feet, which is why the signal is shown to be very strong.
In conform to the 802.11b standard, the unit operates at a maximum trasfer rate of 11MB/sec.
In the site survey mode, the software will detect all wirelessly conected devices. Here you see the BW002, however if there were more devices connected to the wireless hub, then these would also be displayed.
For greater security the trasnmission of data can be encrypted. Security for wireless networks is something most people overlook these days, due to the simple fact that they’re unaware of the threats. One of teh siplest forms of ensuring no one else gets into your network is by having a unique “SSID” on all your machines.
Testing
As for testing the unit, there wasn’t any real high-end network benchmark mechanisms used, but rather simple file transfers between two machines. First we hooked up the BW002 to a machine which was located around 20 feet away from the main server and we got hold of a 1GB MPEG file and proceeded to transfer this file to the server. The whole process took little over a minute or so which was pretty good. Remember that 802.11b works at a maximum transfer rate of 11MB/sec and not 100MB/sec like most wired networks.
Browsing the internet was very smooth with no lags at all. Of course you can’t expect any significant performance drops over the internet since the wireless connection transfers data well over 1MB/sec.
Conclusion
Bluetake certainly have a great product on their hand. The BW002 offers users an excellent solution for easy wireless networking of PC’s. Its size and weight make this unit highly portable as well.
If you already have a wireless network or plan on getting one in the near future, the BW002 offers a unique way of connecting any other PC you have directly to this wireless network completely hassle free. This eliminates the need of cumbersome wiring that you’d usually find in usual network environments. Best thing about this unit is no expert knowledge is required for its operation; all you need to know is how to plug in the USB cable:. It’s a great handy product to have and it does its job as expected. We’re currently unaware of the pricing structure for these units, but I wouldn’t expect them to go over a normal 802.11b PCMCIA card. As soon as we have information on this it’ll be updated in the review. Due to the Dipole antenna in the BW002 the range and signal strength of the system is considerably better than normal PCMCIA wireless cards with no antenna. Of course by adding wireless access points you can increase this coverage area by far.
Thanks for Bluetake for making this review possible.
