(gigaom.com) -- Last month, I wrote about an interesting iPhone 5 case called the Linkase. And by interesting, I mean it claims to something that most cases can’t: Boost your iPhone’s Wi-Fi signal strength by up to 50 percent. It’s made by a company in Taiwan called Abosolute Technology. The case has a few minor design flaws in my opinion — the fact that it doesn’t work with a 30-pin to Lightning adapter is one — but more important is the wireless signal claim. Does it actually work?
In this brief video, I show you how the case works in locations where my wireless network generally sucks. We have 75 Mbps FiOS broadband service with a new 802.11 a/c router and yet in a few rooms, the Wi-Fi is generally useless. And outside of the home far from the router? Same story. Yet in both of these locations, you can see the positive impact made when use the Linkase with my iPhone 5.
The magic is in the slide-out EMW, or electromagnetic waveguide element, which works with phone’s internal Wi-Fi antenna for the boost. I’ve done plenty of tests with the $49 Linkase — not just what I show on video — and it generally works as advertised. Wi-Fi signals are typically much better with the EMW element extended although it really only works in areas with poor or marginal signal reception. Don’t expect Wi-Fi to be faster where it’s already pretty solid.
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