Waves with Wireless Nerd
Join me for a weekly look into what's making waves in tech and the wireless industry! What's new? What's now? What's next?
Waves with Wireless Nerd
Wireless Wonders and Wi-Fi Waves: Testing Groundbreaking Tools, Planning for the Upcoming Euro Wi-Fi Shows and Shielding with Fashion
What if a logo could tell an origin story? Join us as we unravel the tale behind the Wireless Nerd brand and its iconic heart logo adorned with Wi-Fi symbols. I share some quirky and frustrating encounters with logo imitators, the exhilarating process of launching our own merchandise store, and the importance of sticking to a weekly podcast schedule even when news is slow. It's a nostalgic and exciting journey that provides a mix of personal insights and community updates.
Ever wondered how the latest Wi-Fi tools stack up in real-world conditions? We dive into some exciting upcoming projects and tools in wireless network engineering, including hands-on tests with Sidos, Ekahau Sidekick, and Hamina Nomad.
Discover how SignalRoam is using Passpoint technology to revolutionize mobile service connectivity through existing Wi-Fi networks. From the surprising functionality of a TCL flip phone to planned demonstrations at the Wi-Fi Now World Congress, you'll hear the latest in Wi-Fi innovation and testing.
Can fashion protect you from Wi-Fi waves? Explore MIA's new Omni fashion line, designed with silver textiles to shield against 5G and Wi-Fi waves, and find out if tinfoil hats are making a comeback. We also delve into Gamgee's groundbreaking Wi-Fi home alarm system and discuss the serious implications of the Blast Radius attack on the Radius protocol. Finally, we share our thoughts on Centerpoint Energy's lackluster response to a recent hurricane in Texas and invite you to join the wireless community initiative, WI-CO, to connect with like-minded individuals through affordable local events.
Well, hello, 5 o'clock Central Time Sounds like a fun time to start today. We can go with 5 pm Central, 6 on the East, 3 o'clock on the West. Hello everybody, how's it going? My name is Drew Lentz, I'm the Wireless Nerd and this is Waves, the wireless podcast, self-named, self-proclaimed, available at thewirelesspodcastcom, and now I even have merch. So you know, I made the Wireless Nerd little heart logo a couple years ago A couple, he says it's been about 10 years and I started Wireless Nerd because I was at the CTIA show.
Speaker 1:I started Wireless Nerd because I was at the CTIA show in Las Vegas and I didn't see any innovation that year and I wanted to call out some folks who I didn't think were being too innovative in the industry when there was a lot of stuff going on. And so I said, man, I'm going to make this alter ego called Wireless Nerd. And I did, and it was a lot of fun. And here we are 10 years later, almost 10 years later, uh, which is great. So, hi, how are you? Um, anyway, uh, but yeah, that being said, what I did was when I made the little heart with little wi-fi symbols on there. You know, I didn't think anyone would put a little heart with wi-fi symbols, and it's been an interesting journey, and there was even at one point where a well-known manufacturer released a version that looked almost identical of my logo for one of their products, and it was just a different color. And I asked them very kindly. I said, hey, would you mind not doing that? And they were super cool. And they took that down, it was great. And then that didn't happen again for a couple of years. And about two years ago someone also used the same little icon that I had and published it. And I said, hey, that's not cool, like you know me and I know you, and it'd be cool if you just change that. And they said, you know what, okay, cool, we'll do that, we'll go ahead and change it. And so they did.
Speaker 1:And people have asked me for shirts and hats and all kinds of other stuff, and so I decided finally that I was going to do that. So I launched a store today and very quickly I sold four coffee cups and four T-shirts. So if you want to find it, visit thewirelesspodcastcom and I will have a link on there where you can buy some merch. Why not, man? I ordered some for myself too. A little heart with the Wireless Nerd logo right in the middle. Got a little hat, got a little coffee cup. So if you like the logo and you want to support the cause, be my guest. It's hosted at Bonfire and I don't want to mess it up, but I believe the address for Bonfire, for the Bonfire shop, is give me one second here it's bonfirecom slash wireless nerd. So if you're listening right now and you're sitting in front of a computer and you want to order something, bonfirecom slash wireless nerd is the store and I will throw a link to that. You can see the Wireless Nerd t-shirt on there and if you scroll down you can see the hat and coffee mugs and everything else. So I appreciate the support. It's always cool to see people jump on and order stuff and support what we're doing, so I would absolutely appreciate it. Thanks y'all.
Speaker 1:Anyway, it was a rather slow week and it took me, you know, yesterday I was going to record yesterday and go live yesterday but there just wasn't a lot happening and I said, you know, let me see if any other news pops off, because it just didn't seem like there was much moving and I guess the last couple of weeks it hasn't seemed like there's been a lot going on, but I figured we, you know I got to keep to a weekly cadence, so so this is what I have. Um, you know, I got, I played with with c-dose, I played with it yesterday. Here it is right here in my hand. Uh, if you're viewing, if you're looking at this, I've got it. I've got the wave right in front of me. It's really cool.
Speaker 1:Um, it's, you know, pros and cons, definitely some pros, definitely some cons, and the cons I don't think are limited to this. I think it's wireless survey tools in general, and I'm not going to tell you what they are yet because I'm going to make everybody wait because I'm working on something to fix it, to see if I can fix it. But this was a pretty neat device, you know, I might as well just jump into it, right. So I opened it up and the packaging is cool and I popped it open and you know I'd seen this when the guys brought it to WLPC a couple of years ago I guess a year or two years ago and showed it off.
Speaker 1:But I never really got to use it hands on and, more importantly, I never used it with the software and I did a survey of my house. It's, you know, obviously it's what all of us do, right? We're all nerds in some way, shape or form, and our houses are our labs, our networks, et cetera, et cetera, and so well, I know my coverage of my house pretty well. And so I went ahead and I did a design, not even a design. I uploaded the file, I logged into their dashboard, which is very simple to log into, and I uploaded a floor plan and then I proceeded to walk around my house and you know, I will say, the only thing that was a pain in the butt for me was having this device in one hand and this device in another hand and having to navigate the entire app using my thumb, which they do it a little bit differently, and the way that you move in the building, I wasn't used to and it took a little bit of getting used to, and it's not bad, it's not good, it's not either, it's just that's the way that they do it, and so it was a little bit different, but I got used to it and I ran through my house. It took me about 12 minutes to do my house. I did a pretty thorough job. The battery life on this it wasted 4%. Battery life took about 13 minutes, 12 and a half minutes, to get it done. Battery life dropped by 4% and it collected just a whole ton of information.
Speaker 1:And I'm staring at the map in my screen here and I would say that overall it's exactly where I imagine the coverage would look good and would look bad. So what I'm going to do today is I've got my handy dandy sidekick too and I'm going to do the same thing and I'm going to compare what they look like in my home. And I just talked to UC this morning, and so hopefully I get a Nomad on its way soon. They're selling like hotcakes apparently, so hopefully I get the Nomad on its way soon. They're selling like hotcakes apparently, so hopefully I get the Nomad soon. I'll do the same thing in my house and then on top of that I've already mentioned, I've got this guy here. Let's bring this thing.
Speaker 1:Oh, give me a second here the Epic Prism, check this out. So if you haven't seen the Epic Prism, this is a device that IB Wave uses, and IB Wave is another propagation analysis software, and so it comes in this fancy little case right here. You know what it would help if I could see my own video. I don't even know what I'm showing off. Here we go, look. So it comes in this little case right here and it's a tablet. And the tablet isn't the goods. The tablet is just the display to see what you're looking at. But this does 4G and 5G. And so here is, here's the magic, right here. This is, let's see if the same focuses. So here's the magic. This is the little device. It's USB-C powered and it's got a stat light on there. It's got some really cool 3M adhesive on the back to stick it to the back of the tablet and it's got an antenna port. Then it comes with a 90 degree USB-C connector and it comes with two antennas that you can use, and this is going to give me coverage analysis for 4G and 5G.
Speaker 1:So I'm looking at all these different tools. You want to know why. You want to know why. I wonder who's listening. I wonder if Frenet is listening. Here's why, man, because this, you know, I don't know who's listening. You know, I don't have a little list of who's listening. I can see there's a bunch of people. So, hi, everyone listening on Twitter. Hey, melissa, how's it going so seeing people's names appear?
Speaker 1:But a couple of years back, there was this drama, the drama in the wireless industry, when someone posted a screenshot of them using multiple tools and one of the manufacturers got upset with them and they're like, hey, you're supposed to be doing stuff for us, why are you using multiple tools? And one of the manufacturers got upset with them and they're like hey, you're supposed to be doing stuff for us, why are you posting multiple tools online? And everyone kind of got in an uproar about it because it was like, dude, that's, that's what we do. We have all these tools, you know. And and then it happened again. Like like six months ago it happened again. Someone you would think that you know, in 2024 that wouldn't happen, but it happened again. People, hey, you know you're supposed to be supporting one tool and you've got these pictures of all these other tools and I was like, well, that's dumb.
Speaker 1:So I'm in a unique position right now where, you know, I'm not beholden to anyone who is going to complain about me using a tool or not using a tool. So that presents an opportunity for me to do stuff like I don't know, competitively test everything against each other. So, between C-DOS and the Echo, sidekick and the Nomad, I'm going to run tests on all three of them in this area and we'll see what that looks like. But I also have a really cool project coming up where I'm going to be out in the field and I'm going to be doing some outdoor engineering and some outdoor Wi-Fi stuff and that's going to be coming up in August and it's going to be so super cool and it's going to have just a gorgeous backdrop where we're doing some CBRS and some 4G, some 5G and also some Wi-Fi engineering and design and understanding what the coverage is going to look like in a very cool part of North America. My name is Inigo Montoya. There he is, hello Verne, so you know. So I think it's going to be really neat. It's going to be a chance to put all these tools to use in an environment where I get to test all of them the exact same way and just see what the difference is. Is there a difference? Should there be a difference? There shouldn't be a difference if they're all doing the right thing, but maybe some of them are more exact than others and we'll find out. So that's kind of a sneak peek about what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:The C-DOS unit came in and you know. Kudos to those guys. Thank you for shipping it to me, you know, just to be clear, I know we have to talk about some of the stuff whenever we do blog posts. No-transcript work the way that I thought it would. However, c-dos did work the way that I thought it would so far, so that's pretty good. I know what to expect from the nomad. So, you see, it's on dog, we're gonna have some fun with that and then the prism's gonna give me the other stuff anyway. Uh, that's what I got going on this week lots of, lots of fun stuff.
Speaker 1:I've got a new product that we launched called signal roam, and so we're doing passpoint as a service. Uh, if any of y'all have had that conversation with me, stay tuned to linkedin. Basically what it does. It's Signal Roam. It takes about 20 minutes to configure on a wireless network and it uses Passpoint on existing Wi-Fi access points, but it ties it to the carrier, so some of the major carriers are supported in the United States and basically, as soon as a device gets within earshot of your wireless network, it beacons out that it's carrier approved and the device immediately, seamlessly, automatically connects using the credentials from the SIM card to authenticate. So it's a secure connection onto your wireless network and that basically enhances the call connectivity of anyone that's in the surrounding area. And so Signal Room is kind of a fun name, but it's really neat because it gives you the idea that your mobile service is working better than it's ever worked before.
Speaker 1:I you know you want to see one of my latest devices. Look at this. If you're watching this on the on the live stream, look at this bad boy. I got a tcl flip phone. Man. I wanted to find the most inexpensive device that I could find that would work on passpoint and work on signal roam, and so I use the AT&T TCL flip phone 2.4 gig only Kind of crazy. So it supports 4G and 5G, but also only supports 2.4. So that was kind of crazy, but it works on there, and so we launched that product this week. We're having a really good time with it.
Speaker 1:We've got a couple of fun little clients turned on. We had one that processed 1,337. The last time I looked at it, 1,337 users processing transactions on there. So if you're interested in that, let me know. I'll share some information with you. It's really cool and it worked. It's taken me longer to describe what it does than it does to actually make it work. And so when you turn it on, it just kind of happens. It's pretty neat, so happens, it's pretty neat. So you can get a sneak peek of that coming up at if you go to wi-fi. Now the world congress is coming up in um in geneva and I don't know if they're gonna be showing off the product there, but if you want to see a demo of it, call me and I'll set up a demo. But it's a.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of talk about carrier offload, a lot of talk about wi-fi offload, a lot of talk about passpoint. So when you combine all three of those things, that's more or less what we're talking about. Had another conversation today, based on the podcast from last week, talking about the death of the captive portal and what Passpoint means for all that. So interesting. Yeah, hey, everybody, there's even more people, like all these people are watching on Twitter. That's pretty cool, man. So if you have questions or anything, send them in, I'll be happy to chat. That's the beauty of live, right Is, if someone has something to say, man, feel free to pipe in and I'll be happy to chat, and then we'll cut this out and send it as the podcast, anyway. So let's see.
Speaker 1:Let's move on to what's new, what's now and what's next. Not a lot of what's new and what's happening right now. No big crazy acquisitions. You know, it's the summertime also. Everybody's out, dude, like everybody, is not at home and not at their desks and not in. Uh, mia the rapper from the UK, have you guys heard about this? I read this story last week.
Speaker 1:Rapper MIA launches a fashion line to, quote block wifi and 5g, including a $100 tinfoil hat to protect wearers from quote, evil dust nanoparticles. Uh, she's launched a line called Omni, o, h, m, n, I, omnini, which is said to protect its wearers, and she's launched it to protect them from 5G and 4G. $400 for dresses and puffer jackets, $50 for boxer shorts, because everyone needs. You know what, fernay? That's what you're getting for Christmas, dude, you're going to get 5G protectant boxer shorts. Oh man, that's what you get for chiming in on the chat, melissa, I'm going to go ahead and get you that tinfoil hat.
Speaker 1:According to what's the Jam, each item of clothing is made from Omni's original Silver Street Shield textiles. You can look this up. Just look up the Ohm Protection Dress, which retails for $300 on the brand's website. Just look up M-I-A MIA and look this stuff up. There we go, the Protency Fitted Boxer, which are made from silver fabric. They retail for $50.
Speaker 1:Yeah, protects from 99.999% shielding effectiveness against 5g and wi-fi waves. So there we go, man. You heard it. You heard it here. Second, because the daily mail was the first one to talk about this. So if you're looking for a gift, yeah, I'm gonna. I wonder if I can put the wireless nerd logo on those. Anyway, I thought that was pretty funny.
Speaker 1:What else is going on right now? Gamgee took the industry by storm, I guess. Maybe not. That's a little dramatic, but Gamgee unveiled their revolutionary Wi-Fi home alarm system. They call it their smart security solution. So the first, you know, probably not the first to productize it, but it seems like it is. I haven't heard it from anywhere else, at least I can think of. If I'm wrong, tell me about it. But this press release from Amsterdam, netherlands, gamgea, leader in digital technology and home automation, proudly unveils a Wi-Fi home alarm system. State-of-the-art system leverages the widespread presence of Wi-Fi to deliver a unique and comprehensive home security solution and a market prime for innovation.
Speaker 1:Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A bunch of stuff. Okay, so this is interesting In Europe and the US. Only 7% in Europe and 30% to 32% of homes in the US have alarms, and so the Wi-Fi network created by routers and mesh extenders can help that. So this is Wi-Fi sensing, productized to go on your home router. It's pretty neat.
Speaker 1:Intelligent differentiation between types of movements and spaces, customizable detection zones. Enhanced privacy, data stored locally on routers, avoiding the need for cloud storage. Continuous learning. Over time, the system's AI learns, adapts and reduces false alarms and improves recognition accuracy. So gamge has made this thing pretty cool, based in amsterdam. For more information, gamgecom, g-a-m-g-e-ecom pretty neat. So as they go, we'll see if anyone else jumps on the wi-fi sensing train.
Speaker 1:It's, it's, you know this. This goes back to the conversation that we're having when we get AI to run all the things, and it's running the wireless networks for us. What other uses of Wi-Fi can we find? What other uses of the spectrum or the waves or the power can we find the signal? And this is definitely a step in that direction. So good for them.
Speaker 1:But the question is, if you are wearing Mia's magic Wi-Fi underwear and you walk through the house, will the Gamgee Wi-Fi sensing access point be able to see you sneak into the fridge to get some ice cream in the middle of the night. This absolutely sounds like something I need to try. So don't be sad. Maybe not, there may not be visuals I'll save you all that. But oh my gosh, this sounds like Fernay. We're totally going to have to try this out, man. We're going to have to dress in aluminum foil and see how it compares to the designer.
Speaker 1:$50. Wi-fi Chonescom. Wi-fi Chonescom. Wi-fi Chonescom. You heard it here first. Anyway, oh God, this is what happens when there's not a lot of good news out here.
Speaker 1:Folks, the blast radius attack breaks 30-year-old protocol used in networks everywhere. So this is based on the MD5 stuff. There is a new attack for radius. Anyone who uses hardware software that incorporates Radius should read the technical details provided in the CVEs about this. It's basically there's an issue going on with Radius. If you use Radius for anything, which a lot of you do, please take a look at Blast Radius. Blast-radius it's a new attack.
Speaker 1:I just read this about a couple of hours ago. It just came up over the last 24 hours, but I don't know how bad that's going to affect all the different devices that we use on a day-to-day basis in the wireless industry. However, I would definitely take a look at that. What else we got? Oh, this is pretty cool the water burger app in the state of texas. So everybody knows thataburger is the best hamburger in Texas.
Speaker 1:I'm waiting for people to throw things at me on the internet, but what has got their headlines this week is we just had the hurricane come in and barrel came in and it made its way on to land in Houston, texas, and the energy company Centerpoint Energy doesn't have a website that you can go to to tell you where there's problems, of what's up and what's down, so there was no way for people to see what was going on. And even today it's so interesting the guy, like their public spokesperson today, got up in front of a crowd and they said when is power going to be restored? And he was like I can't tell you when it's going to be some days, though. And it was like well, that doesn't give anybody any solace and you know. And they said well, we live here too and we're facing the same problems. I totally get it, but if I'm someone who's sitting there wanting my electricity to be back on, my energy to be provided, I don't want to hear someone say well, eventually, I guess. But and you didn't even know where the outages were happening. So water burger to the rescue. Go figure, theaburger app becomes an unlikely power outage map after the Houston hurricane.
Speaker 1:Amid frustrations with Centerpoint Energy, some Houstonians got creative with their attempts to track the power outages. So this appeared on Twitter alongside another article about a man who caught a 50-pound bass, I believe, in a flooded area of Houston. But the Whataburger app worked as a power outage tracker BBQ Brian. Bbq Brian wrote on Twitter that has 22,000 likes and 6.9 million impressions. The Whataburger app works as a power outage tracker. Handy, since the electric company doesn't show up on a map. So that was kind of interesting. You can Google that, take a look at it. It shows all the different Whataburger signs and some are gray where there's no power and some are orange where there is power. So kudos to Whataburger for making that happen.
Speaker 1:I wonder if there's an internet connectivity issue that can be resolved by that also. We had a pretty big outage with Spectrum yesterday across the state of Texas that they blamed on Barrel 2, on the the hurricane, but it took a lot of us down. That's actually the main reason I didn't record yesterday is we didn't have any internet access for a long time. We got up on starlink over here. A neat little, neat little failover. Uh, just proves the power of starlink, man. I mean really, I have it on the roof and I had to deactivate it for the longest time. It took all of five minutes to reactivate it yesterday when the power went down, but the failover was immaculate.
Speaker 1:I'm running a Meraki MX-84 here and it just rolled right over and it just really makes you wonder. We're in a day and age where I can take a satellite and apply power to it and five minutes later I've got 500 mega-airnet access. It's ridiculous. I really do want to try the Mini. So again, if anyone knows a contact over at SpaceX who can hook me up with a mini I'm headed out to Olympic National Park in a couple of weeks. I hear there's not a lot of coverage out there, so I do want to take it with me. And then the project I'm working on to do the Wi-Fi surveys is going to be out in the middle of nowhere, also on the edge of the middle of nowhere, and so I want to see if I can get a mini from that also anyway. So if you know anyone at spacex, let me know.
Speaker 1:But, uh, but in a, in a time when when you can just flip a switch and you've got internet, that's crazy. Man, was he wearing one of those hats? Oh, the guy, the guy from center point, anyway, um, we get in power source. Do you have it for starling? No, why? Again, no, I don't know what you're saying. For me you're not. I mean, you're not making twitter sense on x. Anyway, I'll let you see what. I don't know what you're saying, frenay, you're not making Twitter sense on X. Anyway, I'll let you see what's. I don't know what a YGAN power source is for Starlink. So that's what's going on right now.
Speaker 1:Next up, we have an announcement for September 23rd and 25th. September 23rd through 25th, my buddy, klaus and his crew is putting on the Wi-Fi World Congress European Edition. It's going to be in Geneva, switzerland, september 23rd through 25th. It was great in Dallas this year. We had a great time there, looking forward to maybe going. That would be really cool to go see an update on everything that's going on. And then, just one month later, the camp starts on october 20th, runs through 22nd and wlpc prague is happening the 23rd through 25th of october. So from let's see what are we going to do here from september 23rd through 25th in geneva, and then from october 20th through 25th in prague and the last year in prague maybe. I know that Keith talked about being the last year at Prague, but I don't remember if he said it was the last year at that hotel or the last year in Prague. Either way, if you get a chance, it would be great to see everybody out in Prague. What a fun trip. So that's what's going on, that's what's coming up. I think that's it. This is a weird month. It feels. I don't know the summer went by real fast, but it feels like it's going to be oh, oh. Gracias, ferney.
Speaker 1:Wlpc Mexico November 9th through 13th. It's in Mexico City, I believe. I will wait for him to comment and say yes or no. It was there last year. Wlpc Mexico November 9th through 13th. That's the other one tad. So september is geneva and prague is october, and then we've got wlpc mexico. Wlpc mexico november 9th through 13th. If you speak spanish or you, you're in the latin american market. That's going to be super fun. That one just keeps on growing man, and plus the food there is insane. And if it is in Mexico City, ciudad Mexico. There is a James Beer rated taqueria or taco truck in Mexico City and I think that definitely calls for a side quest to go get some James Beard taquitos anyway, or rated taquitos. Anyway, that's all I got for this week.
Speaker 1:I hope you all have a wonderful week. It's 525. I am going to enjoy the rest of the day. The conference just an update on that. The conference is the 12th through the 13th. The boot camps are the 9th through the 12th.
Speaker 1:So once again, wi-fi World Congress, september 23rd through 25th in Geneva. Wlpc Prague, october 20th through 25th and then WLPC Mexico from the 9th through the 13th. Gracias de nada, amigo. Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful week. I will talk to you next week, unless something crazy comes up. Then we can jump back on. But until then, do me a favor, get ready to watch the United States kick some serious butt in the Olympics. I'm rocking my USA skateboarding hat. I'm very, very excited.
Speaker 1:Oh god, you guys are at waiko manchester right now. You know I voted. I voted on on the thing that y'all put up there about where should the next waiko be, and I said texas, and I think I was only one. Everyone said nashville. Thanks, sam. Whatever, uh, but nashville will be fun. Also, that's a quick flight for me. I'm really looking forward to making it to a WICO the wireless community with a little elephant. I think that that's really, really neat and I love what you guys are doing and I hope you all are having a wonderful time. Shout out from the Wireless Nerd on the Waves podcast.
Speaker 1:If you don't know anything about WICO the wireless community I don't even know if it has a website. It does. Wi-coorg. Join the herd. Wi-coorg. This is the wireless community and you can click on the link there to sign up and you can bring the herd together. Affordable, accessible local events. Wico is short for the wireless community, the brainchild of one Peter Mack, mr Peter McKenzie and Alan Blake on a mission to make the wireless community party like it's 1999, but without the B rates. Please take a look at WICO and if you're in the UK, get your butt on. Well, I guess don't get over there now. It might be a little bit late in the day, but definitely check out WICO. Wi-coorg. Bit late in the day, but definitely check out WICO. W-i-c-oorg. Back to my goodbyes. No-transcript.
