Launching the Wi-Fi Stand and wifistand.com

Having been involved in the tech industry for my entire career, with a stint of going full time in the entertainment industry, I have a huge appreciation for simple products that create solutions for common problems. I recently saw such a unicorn in the form of a bracket to suspend and place wireless access points at Interop 2016. There were a series of brackets placed throughout the Mandalay Bay convention area that Shawn Lucas, @GotWickedWifi, had built in his garage and provided for public display at the show. Inspired by this and with a goal of creating something different (i.e. lighter, more transportable, and out of a different material, etc) we set out to see if we could bring a product to market that could be what we wanted.

In an effort to make the best product possible and to create a combined effort, I made sure that I identified and reached out to anyone and everyone that I could find who was currently producing a bracket like this. After some research and determining that there was no existing, cost-effective, way to take it to market, I jumped on the challenge to make it better, cheaper, easier to transport, and widely available. 

I consulted with friends and other professionals in the wireless industry to tweak and tune the design. Today, I’m pleased to announce that  we are launching the website and the product for our Wi-Fi Stand.

The Wi-Fi Stand is an easy and quick way to deploy wireless access points and other equipment specifically when and where you need it. Typically when you’re in an environment that requires additional or temporary access points, it also requires someone with a spool of cable, a ladder, and a map to choose where to mount those Wi-Fi access points.

With the Wi-Fi Stand product, you simply attach the bracket to the top of a standard pole or tripod that supports the standard 1/4″ #20 connection, run a length of Ethernet down the pole secured with a fastener, raise the pole to the desired height, and you’re done! 

There have been many attempts to create a bracket for hanging wireless access points. At every show, at every event, and everywhere one of these devices goes up, the pictures are posted to Twitter and Instagram applauding the effort of that bracket. The problem with most of them, at least the way I see it, is that they are big and bulky and seem to cost a little too much time and material to produce.

When we set out to make our Wi-Fi Stand, we looked at the problems with every other bracket on the market today, whether it was for wireless or not. We took what they were all good, which was a small list, and then looked at what they were all bad at, which was a much larger list. We focused on creating a product that was good at all the bad things while remaining great at all the good things.

The result is an 8 x 10″ molded and machined piece of industrial grade PVC, reinforced and accented with pure aluminum materials and stainless steel fasteners. It’s 1/4 inch thick and gives you a clearance window of 6″ x 10″ for even the bulkiest access points, Wi-Fi, and BLE products. 

We tested out the thickness of the product starting with 1 inch and working our way down to an eighth of an inch. We threw it up in the air as high as we could and watched it crash down on the concrete, dropped it off balconies, and twisted it until it broke. We ultimately chose a thickness that made it easily transportable, lightweight, and still resilient and sturdy enough to hold even the heaviest of access points.

I hope that you will enjoy using our product and help us find new and exciting opportunities to make it better. If you have ideas, please reach out. 

If you’re interested in reselling or distributing the product, we’ll make you some money. 

E-Mail: drew@gofrontera.com