Xircom SpringPort Wireless Ethernet Springboard Module for the Handspring Visor

by Xircom

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005K89F
• Item model number: SWE1130-NA
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #158,471 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1973

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Wireless networks have become ubiquitous: they're in offices, homes, and public places like airports and coffee shops. Ditto for handheld organizers, like the Handspring Visor. The two together, like chocolate and peanut butter, form an even greater whole. The missing gap binding these two ingredients has finally arrived in the form of the Xircom SpringPort Wireless Ethernet Module. It's got a hefty price tag but superb performance and features.

The Xircom module supports the most popular wireless networking standard, known by the technical moniker IEEE 802.11b, but more familiarly by an industry trade name, Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity). Apple users also know it as AirPort. Whatever you know it by, it's all compatible; you can use pretty much any Wi-Fi device with any other, regardless of operating system.

Our first concern on opening the module was, "Where's the software?" But, as with many Springboard modules, the unit comes with its own internal memory, on which several applications and settings are stored. The module comes with three main applications: the SpringPort Xircom Wireless application for configuring the module; Blazer, a Web browser; and MM Wizard/MultiMail for handling e-mail. You can also install any Internet software that uses the Visor's network settings for connecting out, such as Eudora for Palm.

The module's internal lithium battery comes charged, and can only be recharged through the Visor's serial port power connector. Xircom includes an AC adapter that can charge the module even if your Visor doesn't use rechargeable batteries. A full charge lasts about two hours of continuous use, which could equate to several hours or days of intermittent access. A power management control allows you to sacrifice speed for longevity.

Xircom allows you to set up three network profiles, which you access by unintuitively clicking the Client Settings button in the SpringPort application's main screen. To connect to a network, you may need to know some or all of the following: the network's exact name (its SSID), an encryption key, the network type, and whether Internet addresses are dynamic or static. The simplest open networks, unsecured by passwords or other restrictions, will work with unmodified default settings.

Fortunately, although the setup seems complex, you only have to do it once for each separately configured network. If you spend most of your time on open networks, you can generally maintain a default setup and connect easily.

The module also supports peer-to-peer networking. Typically, you use Wi-Fi to connect via a specialized central access point out to the Internet. But you can also connect directly to another computer.

Of course, one of the greatest combinations of wireless networking and a Visor is hotsyncing over the network. The Macintosh Palm Desktop software doesn't yet support this, but the Windows version has a Network option in its HotSync menu. Select that, and the Xircom module can now act as a conduit to sync. And, wow, is it fast!

The Xircom module offers a powerful glimpse into the future: holding the whole world, quickly, in your hands. As public infrastructure grows, the Xircom module turns a Visor into a next-generation information appliance, able to send and receive data with great ease practically anywhere. --Charles Kinbote

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars User review of the 1130 SWE module, July 14, 2001

By 

Mac Tech "Alan" (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Xircom SpringPort Wireless Ethernet Springboard Module for the Handspring Visor (Office Product)

I am a network technician at a small, local college and am on the working group to bring 802.11b ethernet wireless to our campus. Xircom was kind enough to give me a beta product for testing. Here are my impressions in a nutshell:

Pros: - - I'm able to check email (POP3 and IMAP4), hotsync to my PC across the network and browse the internet with the included software. According to the manual, those are the only functions advertised. Occasionally, you'll get web pages that, due to formatting, are clumsy to navigate, but you'll find they're good enough to get what you want. Many big sites such as CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo, etc. are making their pages "PDA friendly", and they're actually very readable. - - Contains a signal strength meter that seems to be pretty close to laptops we used for our site survey (and indicator LEDS). It uses a bar graph, but I wish it had a direct numeric read out also. - - Has three different "profiles" settings, making it possible to have 3 different network logins and settings. - - Supports standard 802.11b WEP security (40 or 128 bit). - - Support for Infrastructure or AdHoc mode. - - Supports DHCP and static IP addressing. Both tested fine. - - Battery life is much better than expected. The manual quotes 2 hrs, and that's about what I get using it pretty hard. Because of the high frequency radio waves (2.4 Ghz), it almost gets too warm to hold for that long! Of course, when winter comes here, that will be a plus <g>! - - Doesn't use battery power from the Visor, instead it has it's own Li-Ion battery and includes a charger. Charge time is about 2 hours. The module has a software battery meter like the Visor does. And will give the user "pop-up" messages when the battery gets critically low. - - Network Hotsync feature works great. As long as I can login into a WAP, I can hotsync, install files, get new meetings and appointments from Outlook, etc. from my desktop PC anywhere on campus. - - Has power management features for auto-logging off after a preset time period. - - Contains a Cisco chipset, but have connected to three different manufacture's WAP's with no problems, getting the full 11 mb/s. - - Range appears to be comparable to other 802.11b ethernet products.

Cons: - - Had a problem with the included browser software "Blazer", but Xircom sent me a patch to gain a user login. There are other browsers you can use, such as AvantGo and Eudora. I like AvantGo, but you have to have connect to a server that is running AvantGo. It does, however, do a nice job of formatting web pages to fit the Palm screen, and you can keep pages "active" by having them cached on your desktop before doing a hotsync. Also, Eudora provides a free PDA internet suite, that includes a browser and email client, sounds good, but haven't tried it yet. - - A little bulkier than the other modules, due to it's battery and antenna. - -My only problem has been logging into my web-based managed network devices or mapping drives. - -Tends to become a "hand heater" after awhile of use (High freq. RF power dissipation for sure!). - - Also even with the fast WLAN connection, I believe due to the Visor Deluxe's slower processor, it acts as a bottleneck for the internet connection. I would probably buy the faster model (Platinum) instead of the Deluxe. There is a noticeable difference in loading pages.

Summary: I LOVE this thing!! I'm able to sit out under a tree and surf the net, send/rev email, check appointments and put it in my pocket when I'm done. Battery power is sufficient for doing all the tasks I needed to. I would have given this device a 5-star rating if it included the ability to use utilities such as Ping and Telnet... (Opinions and comments written here are of my own and do not reflect my employer's policies or opinions.)

Update 7/21: I have recently found several of the tcp/ip utilities I had desired. I am now able to ping and telnet to my devices. The telnet is a little clumsy with the screen format, but it does work! Both of those utilites are easily found on the internet, or send me email and I'll send them to you. The latest test was the ICQ Palm client, which, so far, as also worked well. I have no choice but to give this thing a 5-star rating now <g>!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Got it to work with my Linksys WAP, 4-port router (BEFW11S4), May 30, 2002

By 

Brian Swartzfager (Columbia, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Xircom SpringPort Wireless Ethernet Springboard Module for the Handspring Visor (Office Product)

I had to post my results here since the reviews here on Amazon were THE source for info on Springport/Linksys problems.

Despite the warnings in the reviews about problems with Linksys WAPs, I went ahead and got the Springport anyway. My home network uses static IPs, not DHCP, so I was hoping to avoid the problems others had. Alas, no: while it would connect initially, after a few minutes it basically killed the WAP (I would have to hit the reset button).

I tried several things, including switching over to DHCP and statically-programming an unused IP address into the Springport. Still no luck.

Finally I went back to my normal static IP scheme and tried a firmware upgrade of the Linksys. After upgrading the Linksys firmware to version 1.42.7 (dated 4/23/02), it finally worked perfectly. So to make it work:

--Upgrade the firmware for the Linksys (BEFW11S4) to version 1.42.7
--Disable DHCP on the Linksys router and use static IP addresses (I use the default 192.168.1.x range)
--Set the Springport Client settings to use a static IP address. Set the default gateway to the router's local IP address (in this case 192.168.1.1). Set the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0.
--Set the Springport Network Settings (Details) to use PPP. Uncheck Query DNS and enter as the Primary DNS the DNS server of your ISP. Uncheck the Automatic checkbox next to the IP address setting and manually enter a static IP address in the 192.168.1.x range.

At that point, it should work for you. The only drawback to this arrangement is that if your ISP changes the IP address of it's DNS server, you'll have to update that information on the Springport.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It works for me, February 15, 2002

By 

"jonecool123" (Harvest, AL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Xircom SpringPort Wireless Ethernet Springboard Module for the Handspring Visor (Office Product)

I was reading some of the reviews here and I was honestly shocked at how poorly it was rated. I've been using mine for well over 9 months (for wireless software development). I also use it with a LinkSys WAP11(Firmware 1.4g 5) wireless gateway, Blazer 2.0, lftp, MultiMailPro and darn near any other internet-enabled application I can find. I've even written a few apps that work with it.

Although, I know there are some problems with the LinkSys that many folks are having. Just because it works for me, doesn't mean it will work for you. I read on VisorCentral where many folks are having problems. One thing I do know, don't upgrade the flash in the Xircom adapter beyond 1.10 (on Intel's website). I did this and the unit would no longer communicate with the WAP11. I wound up calling Xircom and having the unit replaced back down to SWE App. v1.10. Which again worked great!

I'm only giving this unit 4 *'s because I know that there are problems that were worsened with Xircom's latest firmware release. Other than that, with my experience with it, it's been a great device... ;)