the awnser is C.

My E5830 battery won´t charge unless the battery LED is red and even then it sometimes take two or three attempts to get the battery to charge. Also: the WIFI and Net connections sometimes turn themselves off at random; The unit gets very hot if it´s being used with an external power supply or USB cable; the WIFI often won´t turn on using the side button, it either comes on itself after a few seconds or refuses to come on at all, requiring the unit to be turned off for half an hour or so; finally, if the battery is charged and the unit is then left switched off, the battery goes completely (no LEDs at all) flat after a couple of days (this doesn´t happen if the battery is removed).

Please provide a firmware update for e5830.

Just bought the car package and got it home and on charge but there is no fixing of any kind in the box , Can you explain in detail what the mount should consist of and how to get one or do I just have to return the whole thing and ask for another one from the shop ?

As we can’t get access to broadband through our phone line – too old, we had no choice but to use the MIFI. Works ok but we only just get a signal in one part of the house so it has to stay there. I agree with comments made above that the worse thing is the way it switches itself off – try explaining to your mum and dad how to turn it back on again and you find yourself getting really worked up when they were used to broadband that used to be on permanently (through the phone line before it got so old that BT said “tough you’ll have to try 3G”)

Is there any way that you can make it stay on all the time as we always leave it plugged in?

Is there a date when the answer to this problem will be released for the MIFI if not – if so will it update automatically?

Thanks Matt – good to know that Three do read these comments. I did speak to one of your helpline operators and asked for a software upgrade to fix the WiFi time-out problem. I haven’t heard anything more about that, though I did find on the web that the manufacturer had an adjustable time-out and Three disabled it.

I’ve finally got round to watching the video. No close-ups, so I couldn’t see what kind of windscreen mount is used for the MiFi. It could have been white BluTack for all I could see.

The cigar lighter lead appears to be a universal phone charger type, with a long bulky adaptor-to-plug arrangement at the MiFi end. I’ve now found a right-angle folding adaptor from PAMA, which gives 2 USB sockets. The USB lead supplied with the MiFi is too short so I use a USB to mini-USB lead that I bought with a hub. There was no mention of whether the charger was able to charge while the MiFi was in use.

On a journey of only a couple of hours it should be easier to just use the internal battery, and clip the MiFi onto a sun visor. It would be useful if Three provided a clip for this, since the MiFi doesn’t have any fittings on the case for a clip. Unfortunately the MiFi multi-coloured LED doesn’t give much indication of whether the battery is nearly full or nearly empty.

The video doesn’t show how to switch the MiFi on – I assume it was already on, and holding buttons and watching the flashing LEDS wouldn’t have been interesting enough for video . The LEDs on the display were invisible. The iPod screen was also impossible to see when using Google Maps. No mention of whether he was using Street View on Google Maps Mobile.

The drive was just through Maidenhead, so he didn’t bother to check the live traffic on the motorway junction close to the town. That’s the sort of thing that seems a good reason to need internet in the car – you can see traffic jams that weren’t there when you checked before you left home. Some of my friends were stuck on the M25 for 8 hours last weekend, and cars were still joining the end of the queue when they managed to turn round and go home at midnight.

There was a demonstration of downloading music from iTunes, but the sound quality from the built-in iPod speaker was useless. No mention of how to connect the iPod into the car CD player. I’ve tried using an FM transmitter, but you need to find a free radio channel that doesn’t have a local radio station anywhere along your route. Also the radio aerial is on the roof of the car, where it is screened from the hand-held transmitter. Easier to get an old car with a cassette player, where at least you can get an adaptor.

One useful thing I’ve just found with the MiFi – you can change the WiFi settings to be the same as your home WiFi. I carry a WiFi-enabled printer which can only be set for one WiFi network. I used to have it set to the MiFi, but at home I had to force my laptop to connect to the MiFi whenever I wanted to print. Now with the same settings I can just use it when I want, without having to use the MiFi in the house. It would be nice if the MiFi had an option to be used as a WiFi Bridge to extend my home network instead of potentially interfering with it.

I’ve been using a Three E5830 MiFi for a few weeks now. At home, or in a static location on the riverbank, it usually works brilliantly. A few minor niggles, like the WiFi turns itself off if no computer is using it (so you can’t just leave the MiFi running and expect it to work whenever it is needed) and the mains PSU isn’t powerful enough to charge while the MiFi is switched on.

I’ve used it in the car, with my passenger using a Nokia E61 on WiFi to run Google Maps and see live traffic info and current location. Not sure whether the E61 is getting the location info via the Three WiFi or its own Orange phone, but I’m not being charged by Orange for any data.

Power in the car can be a problem – I tried a cigar-lighter to USB adaptor, but with the USB cable plugged in it became difficult to change gear. A right-angle adaptor would be useful. I haven’t viewed the video on this blog to see what they used. (I assume that a you-tube video will eat into my data allowance.)

Main problem in the car is that it drops the Three mobile signal and fails to reconnect. When I try to simulate this at home, it does reconnect, and Three tell me it is supposed to reconnect. As with so many other things, it only goes wrong when I’m too busy to investigate. Has anyone else had this failure to reconnect? It sometimes happens at home too. The Three helpline suggested that I might have a faulty dongle, but I really don’t want to pay for another hour at cross-network rates to get them to sort it. They don’t have effective online support for broadband other than by talking to someone.

Three have disabled WiFi access to the manufacturer’s built-in router webpage, so you can’t see a proper signal strength or battery condition when positioning the gadget – important when you have a weak signal and need to clip it to the curtains in an upstairs window. The built-in LEDs are not very effective and go out after a couple of seconds, which seems to be less than the update time of the signal strength monitor. If you leave it connected to a charger, the battery LED operates continuously, but not the other LEDs. (The battery LED is the only one I don’t need to see when I know I’ve connected it to power…)

Regarding cost of data – if your data usage is usually less than 1GB per month, get the 12GB for 12 months package, put the SIM into the MiFi, and just keep the USB dongle as a spare (or sell it on ebay). That way you won’t lose the unused data at end of every month (just at the end of the year).

One other comment on teh E5830 MiFi – the control buttons are all white on a white case. Not good when giving instructions to your passenger in a moving car at twilight. Unfortunately the MiFi cannot simply be installed in a car – you have to press the little buttons on the side regularly just to keep it working.

What is needed is a choice of modes of operation, including one where the presence of USB power would immediately bring the whole unit on (with WiFi and mobile) and remain on until and adjustable delay (maybe 30 secs or 5 mins) after the USB power has gone off. Currently you have to press one white button for several seconds to turn it on, wait for a while, press quickly again to see if the WiFi has enabled itself, then press and hold a different white button in the hope that it wil connect to a mobile signal. Sometimes it will work first time, sometimes on a second press. If it worked on the first press, you’ll find you’ve accidentally turned it off on the second press.

MiFi is great, but you do need patience with this gadget. With a firmware upgrade – possibly to the manufacturer’s original version? – it could become a lot simpler to use.

Surorised that three are using an iphone. One of two phones you cant get on three;

The Iphone
The HTC desire

A good way to show us new tech, buy using a mobile you cant get on three, go ahead rub it in!

I have had wi-fi in my car for more than 1 year with the D100 Router from 3 and a 12v regulated car power supply from Maplins in works a treat but you do need a 12v power supply for it to work as the D100 Router has no internal battery.