If you live in a place with weak cell phone coverage, you likely have to go through all sorts of drama to make and receive phone calls or get your e-mail such as stand near a window or go outside. But there is help for you and you don’t have to wait for your cell phone carrier to provide that help. It comes in the form of the weBoost eqo Cell Phone Signal Booster:
Inside the box you get the following:
- The main Eqo unit (the black box on the right)
- The antenna (the black box on the left)
- A power supply
- A 25-foot coaxial cable.
It promises to improve your cell phone signal if you fit the above use case regardless of what carrier you happen to be on. More on that in a second. First we have to set it up and the set up is incredibly trivial:
- Place the main Eqo unit wherever you get the best signal strength on your phone. Make sure the shiny plastic section with the LED is facing into the room where you can see it and not out toward a wall or window.
- Put the antenna anywhere from 6′ to 25′ away from the main unit and connect the coaxial cable. It should in front of the main unit, but not facing it.
- Connect it to the power supply and wait for the LED to light up. It will be red or orange when it starts up, but if you have it in the right place, it will turn green. One thing to note is that you have to be able to get some sort of signal for it to turn green. If you cannot get a signal at all, you’re almost out of luck. I’ll explain the almost part in a moment.
- Done! Declare victory and have a beer!
But the real question is, does it work? There’s a very objective way to test this. I used the field test mode of my iPhone 6 to figure out how well this signal booster works. What’s field test mode you ask? Every phone has a feature called field test mode which allows someone like those who work for cell phone carriers as well as companies to make cell phones to test the signal strength of a cellular signal in very precise ways. Now this feature is usually hidden, but if you’re interested in enabling field test mode on your iOS or Android phone, here’s an article that will help you with that.
In my case, I used an iPhone 6 on 3G and this is what I get in my condo without the signal booster:
If you look at the top left of the picture above, you’ll see a -90. That’s the signal strength in decibels (db) which is far more accurate then the dots or bars that you typically see on your phone. The closer this number is to -50, the better your signal strength is. If this number is close to or over -100, the more likely you will have problems making and receiving calls. Assuming that you can do so at all. In my case, my reception was pretty bad. Seeing as I live in a condo in a very urban area with lots of tall buildings around it, that’s not a surprise.
The weBoost eqo Cell Phone Signal Booster changes this. Once I set it up and powered it up, this is what I got:
That’s a significant difference. But let me explain something so that you understand how significant the difference is. The rule of thumb when trying to compare the strength of a cell phone signal (or WiFi for that matter as that’s not any different) is to convert it to a figure called RSSI or Recieved Signal Strength Indicator. The formula to do so is this:
Quality = 2* (db + 100)
So using that formula, I came up with these RSSI numbers:
Before The Signal Booster: 20 RSSI
After The Signal Booster: 82 RSSI
Seeing as a perfect signal (which is close to impossible to get outside of a lab) is -50 db. That’s impressive. And this was reflected in the fact that I could now make and receive calls without issue as prior to the signal booster I could sometimes not hear callers or they could not hear me. Surfing the net was faster. Not dramatically faster, but I did notice it. The signal booster covers 1500 square feet and I had no issues getting a good signal in my sub 1000 square foot condo. Clearly weBoost eqo Cell Phone Signal Booster works as advertised.
Downsides? There’s only one that I can see. This is only meant to be used indoors. If your use case includes the outdoors, this isn’t the product for you. As for the almost part that I mentioned earlier, if you you can’t get a signal, you may need an external antenna which the signal booster supports and weBoost can work with you to figure out what you need for the use case that you have.
Now this signal booster isn’t cheap. Best Buy in Canada is selling these for $499.99. But if you have problems making or receiving phone calls, it’s money well spent. Take a good hard look at the weBoost eqo Cell Phone Signal Booster if you want to make and receive calls without having do anything dramatic to do so.
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Review: weBoost eqo Cell Phone Signal Booster
If you live in a place with weak cell phone coverage, you likely have to go through all sorts of drama to make and receive phone calls or get your e-mail such as stand near a window or go outside. But there is help for you and you don’t have to wait for your cell phone carrier to provide that help. It comes in the form of the weBoost eqo Cell Phone Signal Booster:
Inside the box you get the following:
It promises to improve your cell phone signal if you fit the above use case regardless of what carrier you happen to be on. More on that in a second. First we have to set it up and the set up is incredibly trivial:
But the real question is, does it work? There’s a very objective way to test this. I used the field test mode of my iPhone 6 to figure out how well this signal booster works. What’s field test mode you ask? Every phone has a feature called field test mode which allows someone like those who work for cell phone carriers as well as companies to make cell phones to test the signal strength of a cellular signal in very precise ways. Now this feature is usually hidden, but if you’re interested in enabling field test mode on your iOS or Android phone, here’s an article that will help you with that.
In my case, I used an iPhone 6 on 3G and this is what I get in my condo without the signal booster:
If you look at the top left of the picture above, you’ll see a -90. That’s the signal strength in decibels (db) which is far more accurate then the dots or bars that you typically see on your phone. The closer this number is to -50, the better your signal strength is. If this number is close to or over -100, the more likely you will have problems making and receiving calls. Assuming that you can do so at all. In my case, my reception was pretty bad. Seeing as I live in a condo in a very urban area with lots of tall buildings around it, that’s not a surprise.
The weBoost eqo Cell Phone Signal Booster changes this. Once I set it up and powered it up, this is what I got:
That’s a significant difference. But let me explain something so that you understand how significant the difference is. The rule of thumb when trying to compare the strength of a cell phone signal (or WiFi for that matter as that’s not any different) is to convert it to a figure called RSSI or Recieved Signal Strength Indicator. The formula to do so is this:
Quality = 2* (db + 100)
So using that formula, I came up with these RSSI numbers:
Before The Signal Booster: 20 RSSI
After The Signal Booster: 82 RSSI
Seeing as a perfect signal (which is close to impossible to get outside of a lab) is -50 db. That’s impressive. And this was reflected in the fact that I could now make and receive calls without issue as prior to the signal booster I could sometimes not hear callers or they could not hear me. Surfing the net was faster. Not dramatically faster, but I did notice it. The signal booster covers 1500 square feet and I had no issues getting a good signal in my sub 1000 square foot condo. Clearly weBoost eqo Cell Phone Signal Booster works as advertised.
Downsides? There’s only one that I can see. This is only meant to be used indoors. If your use case includes the outdoors, this isn’t the product for you. As for the almost part that I mentioned earlier, if you you can’t get a signal, you may need an external antenna which the signal booster supports and weBoost can work with you to figure out what you need for the use case that you have.
Now this signal booster isn’t cheap. Best Buy in Canada is selling these for $499.99. But if you have problems making or receiving phone calls, it’s money well spent. Take a good hard look at the weBoost eqo Cell Phone Signal Booster if you want to make and receive calls without having do anything dramatic to do so.
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This entry was posted on May 6, 2016 at 8:00 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.