How to View Passwords for Saved Wi-Fi Networks on Android | Dramel Notes

You probably have a dozen or more Wi-Fi connections saved on your Android phone: your home network, friends’ houses, the workplace, and many more. Most of these require a password, which you probably asked the owner for and then forgot about.

Unfortunately, Android doesn’t let you view the passwords of saved networks, so if you want to share a network with a friend, you have to look up the passkey again. Fortunately, there’s a workaround.

Note: Your device must be rooted to use these applications. These apps are meant to retrieve passkeys for Wi-Fi networks you’ve already connected to. They won’t help you break into new Wi-Fi networks.

There are two apps you can use for this purpose that do essentially the same thing. While Wi-Fi Key Recovery is the tried and true solution, it’s horridly out of date (last updated in 2012). Wi-Fi Passwords is a much more attractive app that’s still being updated, but it doesn’t have as much of a following. Use whichever you prefer.

Install your preferred app, grant it SuperUser permissions, and you’ll be taken to a list of saved Wi-Fi networks. For Wi-Fi Key Recovery, the PSK field is the password. Wi-Fi Passwords will have a network’s password underneath it.

Both apps allow you to search for a network’s SSID (the public name you see when connecting to it).

A screenshot will probably do for sharing a password with a friend, but if you need to export your entire list, you can also utilize each app’s built-in sharing options. Having trouble with your network? We’ve shown how to find and change your Wi-Fi password.

What network passwords did you recover with these apps? Which app do you prefer? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: Ditty_about_summer via Shutterstock.com

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Li-Fi Is 100x Faster Than Wi-Fi, But What’s the Catch? | Dramel Notes

You’ve heard of Wi-Fi, now you need to hear about Li-Fi. Still in the nascent stage, this new technology could change how you use the Internet. It’s much faster than existing Wi-Fi tech, it’s more energy-efficient, and potentially more secure as well.

But of course, there are just as many downsides.

Li-Fi, or Light Fidelity, is suddenly in the news these days because an Estonian company called Velmenni conducted a real-world test where it was able to transfer data between devices at 1 Gbps, which is roughly 100 times faster than Wi-Fi in the real world. In lab tests, the fastest recorded speed was 224 Gbps!

And it all works with the simple power of light.

What Is Li-Fi?

Li-Fi’s biggest proponent is Harold Haas, a professor at The University of Edinburgh, and founder of the company pureLiFi, which is trying to bring the technology into real world markets.

Li-Fi is dependent entirely on light, specifically LED bulbs. In a way, it’s the next step in connected lighting. In the simplest terms, Li-Fi transfers data over light waves. By comparison, Wi-Fi uses radio waves.

This means that Li-Fi is completely wireless, much like existing Wi-Fi. Haas also stresses that it can operate with existing LED bulb technology. Note: “existing technology” doesn’t mean “existing LED bulbs” that you already have set up in your house. Li-Fi actually works on wireless protocols much like Wi-Fi’s 802.11.

In short, you’ll need new bulbs. Li-Fi will also require a new piece of technology in your smartphones and laptops: a photosensor. Photosensors (also called photodetectors) are sensors which can “read” incoming light.

How Does Li-Fi Work?

Li-Fi works much like the infrared technology in your television, and infrared works on a simple principle: an input command is given (e.g., “change channel” when you press a button) and that input is turned into binary code.

That code is then transmitted over infrared light waves by your remote’s sensor, and the light waves are received by your TV’s infrared sensor, which decodes the light and performs the intended input action.

PureLiFi’s infographic above shows how this works. The Internet and router/server is hooked to a cable, and the cable is attached to any number of LED bulbs in your house. The LED bulbs then transmit the data as modulating light waves while a photodetector on your phone or laptop picks up those light waves and decodes them.

So anywhere that your LED bulb is casting light that your photodetector can “see”, you’re ready to get Internet access — and at speeds faster than Wi-Fi.

Howevenr, this means that Li-Fi requires direct line-of-sight between the source (bulb) and recipient (phone or laptop), so while properly configured Wi-Fi can go through walls, you won’t be able to do that with Li-Fi.

What Makes Li-Fi So Promising?

Watch the demo above by Velmenni and you’ll see the huge potential of this technology. There are some obvious benefits over Wi-Fi:

1. You won’t have to worry about congested radio waves and wireless dead zones.
2. It’s much, much faster than existing Wi-Fi speeds.
3. It’s more energy-friendly than Wi-Fi, which requires power-hungry masts. Also, if your photodetectors are solar cells, as Haas envisions, you might be able to use wireless battery charging and wireless Internet simultaneously.
4. Li-Fi’s direct line-of-sight requirement means that it’s probably going to be more secure than Wi-Fi, since someone outside your home can’t hack into your system. But, as Techcrunch points out, a telephoto lens and optimally tuned photosensor could potentially change that.

The Problems With Li-Fi

While all of this sounds really good, there are some major problems that Li-Fi still has to overcome:

1. Li-Fi cannot be used in direct sunlight (or other odd conditions with harsh lighting) since the photodetectors won’t be able to detect the modulating light waves. It’s unclear what counts as a poor condition, but as Velmenni’s and Haas’s demos have shown, it does work with some amount of ambient lighting.
2. The line-of-sight requirement can be a major bottleneck. Let’s say you have one Li-Fi bulb in your living room and you want to move to your bedroom. Well, you better have another Li-Fi bulb set up there or you’ll be out of luck.
3. Li-Fi is going to need reinvestment in lighting and wiring infrastructure.

Will Li-Fi Revolutionize the Internet?

Right now, it’s honestly too early to tell. Advocates of the technology suggest that instead of Li-Fi replacing your existing setup, it’ll be an additional connectivity source that boosts your usage. PureLiFi illustrates this by showing how you are likely to go from LTE to Wi-Fi to Li-Fi in your home:

We probably won’t see a mass rollout of Li-Fi anytime soon. PureLiFi is the leader in this regard and has so far joined up with one French company to hopefully go to market by the third quarter of 2016.

What Does All of This Mean?

The bottom line for you right now? Nothing changes.

Li-Fi seems like really cool technology and could help augment existing Wi-Fi and other wireless connectivity — it could potentially even replace it altogether — but actual usage for us consumers is a long, long time away.

Until that happens, check out Haas’s most recent demonstration of Li-Fi and be amazed by what the marriage of LED bulbs, Li-Fi, and solar cells could bring to our smart homes of the future:

What Do You Think About Li-Fi?

What’s your take on this new wireless tech, is it the future or just a fad? Would you buy into Li-Fi technology any time soon?

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How to Manually Add or Remove Wi-Fi Networks from OS X | Dramel Notes

One of the things that OS X does is save every Wi-Fi network you connect to. This is great if you go from Wi-Fi network to Wi-Fi network and don’t want to enter your credentials each and every time, but it does have a downside.

For one, if you connect to a network with a common name, such as “xfinitywifi” then your computer might connect to that network whenever it is available.

Another example, let’s say your network isn’t immediately available and you’ve connected to another network across the street. However, that network’s signal is weak and though you can connect to it, it’ll be frustratingly slow. Furthermore, you may even realize immediately what has happened so you won’t understand why your Internet access is so darned slow.

Today we want to show you how to add and remove Wi-Fi networks on OS X so that these kind of situations don’t occur. Furthermore, it’s very advisable that you go through and prune your saved network from time to time so if you have a bunch of old ones in your list, then it may be time to clean house.

Removing Networks

To begin, first open the network preferences and click the “Advanced” button.

With the advanced panel open, make sure you’re on the Wi-Fi tab and choose the network for which you no longer have any use and click the “-” button.

If you want to select multiple networks at once, hold the “Command” key and click on each network you want to delete.

A warning dialog will appear asking you to confirm, click “Remove” to delete the network from your saved list.

Again, we recommend going through and giving your saved networks a good proper cleaning from time to time.

Adding Networks

Adding networks, such as if you need to add a hidden network is as simple as clicking the “+” and entering the necessary information.

You will need to enter the SSID or network name and choose the type of security (WEP, WPA/WPA2, etc.).

Now, when you connect to this network, you will need to enter a password (if the network has security). Obviously, since you entered the network manually, it will already be saved but now you know how to delete it.

You may have noticed in previous screenshots that you can drag networks into the order your prefer, which means that if you do have a multiple networks saved and you don’t want to delete any, then you can rearrange them, which we discuss at greater length in this earlier article.

Note, we’ve also talked about how to manually remove saved networks from a Windows 8.1 computer if you also use that platform.

If you have any questions or comments you would like to contribute to this article, please leave your feedback in our discussion forum.

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How to Enable Wi-Fi Calling on an Android Phone | Dramel Notes

Wi-Fi calling allows your smartphone to place and receive phone calls, as well as send and receive SMS messages over Wi-Fi instead of the cellular network. Your phone will seamlessly hand off to the cellular network when you move out of Wi-FI range.

Android phones have supported this for longer than the iPhone has, but often just with customized Android devices purchased from the cellular carrier itself. There are also other Wi-Fi calling solutions you can use, including Google Hangouts, Google Voice, and Skype.

Enable Android’s Wi-Fi Calling Support

This feature is now integrated into the latest versions of Android in a more standard way. One day, you’ll hopefully be able to get any Android phone and enable Wi-Fi calling on any cellular carrier’s network if that carrier supports it, just as you can with iPhones.

If Wi-Fi calling is an option, you should find it in a standard place. Open the Settings app on your Android phone and tap the “More” or “More Settings” button under Wireless & network.

You’ll see a “Wi-Fi Calling” option here — activate it to enable the feature. If you don’t want to use Wi-FI calling, you can disable it from here, too.

This option won’t appear unless you’re using a phone with Wi-Fi calling support and are connected to a cellular network that works with it. But this is a quick way to check if you can currently use Wi-Fi calling. This option should hopefully become more standardized and widely available in the future.

As this is Android, it’s possible that your cellular carrier’s customizations — or the manufacturer’s customizations — have put a “Wi-Fi calling” option in a different place in the interface. You may need to search for the name of your smartphone, “Wi-FI calling”, and possibly the name of your cellular carrier.

 

Use an App Instead

Don’t see the “Wi-Fi calling” option there? Your cellular carrier may not offer this feature, or it may not work with your specific device. But there are other solutions you can use it you want to call and text from Wi-Fi.

Google’s Hangouts Dialer app will allow you to place phone calls from a Wi-Fi network. Most calls to the US and Canada are free, so this is an easy way to  place calls to the US and Canada from a Wi-Fi network. If you don’t have a Google Voice account, the recipient will see one of Google’s seemingly random phone numbers appear on their caller ID.

If you’re in the US, you might want to sign up for Google Voice. This will give you a dedicated phone number, and you can receive and place phone calls and participate in SMS conversations over Wi-Fi using it. Unlike some competitors, this is completely free — as long as you’re communicating with someone in the US or Canada.

Other solutions include Microsoft’s Skype app. It can be used for traditional phone calls and SMS messages all over the world, although that will cost you some money. It’s not free in the USA, as Google Voice is.

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Of course, for communication, other apps that let you place audio calls and send text messages without relying on traditional phone numbers can also work. For example, you could have audio and text conversations with Google Hangouts, Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and others. These all natively work over Wi-Fi or a cellular data connection, so you can use them even when you don’t have a cellular signal. The above solutions are only really necessary if you want to send and receive phone calls and text messages from phone numbers.

Image Credit: Karlis Dambrans on Flickr

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