File this one in the “why hasn’t anyone thought of this before” category. Wireless Goodness just dug up an FCC listing for a new WiFi adapter from AmbiCom that wraps all of the electronic doodads into an adjustable antenna module.

Most USB WiFi dongles just stick out of your computer at an awkward angle. The AmbiCom WL150N-USBx, on the other hand, features an antenna that you can adjust so that it will stick up instead of out. As an added bonus, there’s a halfway decent chance that adjusting the antenna position might actually improve your signal reception.

The adapter can handle 802.11b/g/n WiFi. And that’s about all we know about it at the moment. No word on pricing or availability.

Of course, most netbooks and notebooks come with built in WiFi adapters these days, and many even support 802.11n networking. But this dongle could come in handy if you have an older laptop or desktop that doesn’t already have WiFi support.

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9 replies on “AmibiCom USB WiFi adapter is all antenna”

  1. This would be a good possibility if someone wanted to add a Broadcom HD decoder to their netbook but only have one mini pcie port being used by a wireless card.

  3. Could be handy for some netbooks when using for security purposes as many of the built-in 802.11 cards do not support all features… would be nice if it were a/b/g/n, but that is expecting a bit much…

  4. A “killer” idea. The sort of idea I wish I had come up with myself.

    The first use I think of is this older model NetBook sitting here that
    does not have a well supported Wifi chip and no internal antenna.

    Now if they would add-in a USB hub to the base, so a person doesn’t
    have a net loss of USB ports to use when it is plugged in…
    A “world beater” device.

    1. Would be EVEN BETTER if it has MESH NETWORKING built-in, so that it could be used on ANY NETBOOK that is being used in schools (meaning that then the netbook could be inside the Mesh Networking of an OLPC XO-1 Sugar desktop).

      AND, of course, we could all use Mesh Networking to extend those limited distance wireless access points. Can you imagine if EVERYONE had mesh networking running?

      1. “Mesh Networking” is something that is (or isn’t) built into your network stack,
        it isn’t part of the hardware.

        If you don’t have mesh networking on your own machine, it just means you
        are running too old a copy of the Linux kernel or don’t have it configured.

        If your talking about mesh networking on some common propriatary OS,
        then e-mail B.G. about the subject.

        1. Wrote B.G. once, had someone call from that company, then I could never get back to that person, but I was told that the person who called would help fix the problem. Problem was theirs totally, and I tried to follow up, only got the cold shoulder, and talked to another phone number where it was going to cost something like $95 and they wanted a credit card number BEFORE I could talk to anyone at tech there… TO FIX A PROBLEM WITH THEIR OS that their representative had said was their proboem…. it was then, that we concluded that Linux was the way to go.

          OLPC XO-1, with Sugar, had a Mesh Networking capable system that was part of the stack. Too bad that others can’t, or will not, do the same. Intel hated it because they were all about WiMax at the time (patents and all).

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