Recently I bought a Wi-Fi Detector Shirt from ThinkGeek. I've worn it to work and even BarCampLA with many comments.

People often wanted to know how it worked. To wash the shirt, you need to take it apart, so I thought I could show you.

The display is attached to the front of the shirt.

The display is held in place by velcro normally. It's not hard to lift it up.

The display detaches from the cable easily.

In a small pocket, the actual wifi unit sits. The cable connects the wifi receiver to the display

The wifi unit has switch to turn it off and on. The whole thing runs off of two AA batteries. They seem to last about one night.

The cable itself runs though a cloth tube that is attached about both ends. When you are wearing the shirt, you don't feel anything but the cloth.

ThinkGeek says you can wash the shirt with the cable still inside the tube. I wasn't taking any chances and pulled the cable out.

Hear is the wifi detector, minus the shirt.

The shirt is a lot of fun when you are in a tech saavy group. The number one question they ask is "Does it tell you the SSID?". Alas, no it doesn't . I think Version 2 woudl be kick ass if it had a text display of the hotspot SSIDs it could see.

Posted by michael at November 25, 2007 05:29 PM