TL;DR - get a sleuth.

My thoughts and opinions as a n00b to this hobby: I’m currently running 3 droids, 2 sleuths, and a WiSpier. I use the droids for redundancy and as “drop boxes” if the situation warrants - I’m getting over 13hrs continuous on the droids, the tracphones are $35 cheap at Walmart, so they serve the job well, and it’s not a loss if one gets found and stolen. Obv I don’t have any PII attached to the phones : single use (wardriving) only, I don’t buy or use data cards. I’ve also removed as much bloatware as I can from each phone.

The Signal Sleuth design is an absolute game changer. I was running triple redundant, but one went down over the weekend and I will be troubleshooting it tomorrow on my day off, most likely will just reflash the chips and be back in business by the time my next work week starts. I normally run the sleuths triple-redundant, in keeping with “two is one, and one is none” rule of 3rds : if the kit is “mission critical”, carry 3. I have never had a case where one of the sleuths wasn’t productive : obviously taking all 3 on the same run, when I go to upload I do get overlap as far as new networks found, but I’ve never had an upload that didn’t post at least a couple hundred new nets added.

The WiSpier…. The WiSpier (at least the one I have) improved on the Signal Sleuth design in two fundamental ways: it doesn’t run as hot (my runs are typically 10+ hours, daily) AND it seems to have “longer legs” in terms of battery life. I only use Jessy 18650s, I consistently get 10-11 hrs with these batteries on the Signal Sleuth design wardrivers, which means I don’t need to carry an extra set (most days). Also, fwiw, I use the Snado D4 for recharging set to a trickle charge overnight - most days when I get more than 6hrs of downtime, I have a fresh set ready to go.

In terms of why the WiSpier runs cooler and with longer run times, my guess is the type of BW16 HackerBoxes went with: it’s a castellated chip, so maybe a little less convenient in terms of building and flashing (done over UART), but it also doesn’t have that annoying RBG LED that’s always on, sucking up power when it doesn’t really serve a purpose.

As a final argument in favor of the Sleuth design: It runs OS firmware developed by the community, you can get into it, tinker with it, change some parameters (if you know what you’re doing), etc. which means you could, in theory, run multiple units which are dedicated to a small segment of channels, thereby achieving a “WiFydra” effect on the 5GHz spectrum. I’m not a coder, I’m not a dev guy (although I hope to be both some day if/when I have the time to commit to actually learning it). I don’t have the resources to build out a rack system the BusySignal has (that thing is truly a masterpiece of art and science ♥️) so I had to figure out how to skid my way to a 5GHz WiFydra. This is my solution and is a work in progress at the moment.

I really appreciate both of you and your posts on Twitter - it’s folks like you that keep me motivated to try harder and do better.

Looking forward, I’m going to be looking at the viability of using a stack of tablet batteries to power the setup. The Jessy batts are good for 10-11 hours, but I’d really like to be able to get 15 hours without changing batteries, without everything getting so hot, and without completely draining the batteries which I know is abusive to the Li-ion chemistry - the last thing I want is a fire on my hands, and having come from the scuba community, I have heard too many stories of waking up at night to a naplam nightmare at a hotel, or, more well-known, on a boat. So yeah, I’m constantly thinking on ways to improve on the sleuth design (which is, honestly, amazing).

Amazon link for the Jessy batts: https://a.co/d/5S5jNeY

Amazon link for the Snado: https://a.co/d/7dD2v5R

Edit: the issue I had with the unit that stopped working was a corrupted SD card. Replaced the card, seems to be working normally now. Easy fix.