Digital Hotspotter HS10

Canary Wireless Digital Hotspotter has by far the most potentially useful sniffer of the lot. The Digital Hotspotter is equipped with an LCD screen that informs you of a hotspot’s SSID (Service Set Identifier), channel data, signal strength, encryption status, and whether the network is open or closed. Pressing and releasing the single button initiates a scan.


Canary’s device is the only one that uses AAA batteries, which are an easy find just about enywhere, but the unit suffers for the added dimensions. The Digital Hotspotter weighs in at 2.5
ounces, which also makes it the heftiest unit we tested.

The Digital Hotspotter finished last in our performance tests. Although it performed satisfactorily when scanning for our home access point and the coffee shop’s access point, it failed to identify a usable signal in our office. The office access point is a closed network, but the Digital Hotspotter should have picked it up nonetheless.