As you might imagine, I have quite a few Wi-Fi devices and I end up carrying a lot of them on my business trips. I am reliant on Connectify to make them all work on the road. But what happens when I’m home? What if my laptop is off? What if I take it with me and my family wants to use the wireless printer?
I have come up with a solution that works with every device I have: I set my home Wi-Fi router and my Connectify hotspot to both have the same network name (SSID), security settings (WPA2-Personal), and password (some devices call it a key or passphrase). You can find these settings in any router’s web application for setting it up, and of course, the Name and Password are in the Connectify application. Set them to anything you want, just make them the same.
Then when I'm home the Internet I share with Connectify is my home WiFi network. Since they look exactly the same, all of my other devices connect to whichever one is closest.
So, I can take devices like my Wi-Fi phone, Wireless Printer or Eye-Fi enabled camera from home with me and can work just fine at any hotel or coffee shop, since my laptop is making the network look exactly the same to the devices. Or I can go home and shut off my laptop and they go through my Linksys router. Or, if I go home and leave my laptop on, it automatically acts as a wireless repeater to give me better coverage in my house.
It’s my Wi-Fi Personal Area Network, whether I’m at home or on the road.
