Hawking a Router for Mac Users

Hawking Technologies today rolled out the newest member of its family of Hi-Gain Wi-Fi products that target Macintosh users. The new Hi-Gain Wireless-108G MIMO Router with AMP Technology (model HWRGM1A) will sell for $99.

"The entire product is designed toward Mac users, from the setup to the packaging to the manuals," says Jason Owen, chief manager of product development and marketing at Hawking. "Mac users are picky about what they use — they want to make sure it matches the Apple product line."

Apple Computer — one of the first computer makers to integrate Wi-Fi back before Wi-Fi was even a brand name —  sells its own Wi-Fi equipment under the AirPort Extreme brand. That hardware uses 802.11g. The new Hawking Hi-Gain will also use 802.11g, but with a power boost of 100 milliwatts (mW) consistently across all three antennas. 

As with the AirPort or any other router, the new Hawking will still connect to PCs with operating systems other than MacOS, such as Windows or Linux. Owen says the Mac targeting is more about design -- he says Hawking is the only wireless network vendor doing that for Mac users. However, Hi-Gain products without the Mac-specific design are also available.

The HWRGM1A does not have true MIMO, not in the sense of it being "multiple-in, multiple-out" as found in products today such as Airgo's TrueMIMO chips or the various Draft-N chips from Broadcom, Atheros and others supporting the 1.0 draft of the future 802.11n specification. The Hawking Hi-Gain does have three "smart" antennas, coupled with the power boost on a RaLink 802.11g chip to deliver better signal distance.

"It gets more performance [with the power boost] than with the bells and whistles... we feel the best way to get the range is to amplify," says Owen. The company says the HWRGM1A can get three times the range of an AirPort Extreme base station router.

Another difference is that the AirPort products still sell for $200, but the Hawking 108G MIMO Router has a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of $149.

The three antennas are detachable, and can be replaced with any of the Hi-Gain 24 Antenna line that Hawking sells to get a higher gain or a directional signal. The router has standard SMC connectors for the antennas, but will even connect to outdoor antennas using an adapter cable.

Other products in the Hi-Gain 108G line mimicking the Mac design include a Wi-Fi locater, a USB adapter and a laptop PC Card. All feature flip-up antennas to improve signal range. Mac-ish antennas include the 7dBi omni-directional and a 15dBi corner-mountable.

"Hawking now offers a complete solution for Mac wireless networking," says Owen. He says the audience for those products makes them "a little more exciting.... they don't have as much volume, but we get a lot more attention."