CelLynx 5BARz Road Warrior Cell Phone Booster

It isn’t very often that a really new and innovative product actually makes it to market.  The 5BARz Road Warrior by CelLynx caught my eye out of the thousands of exhibits at CES 2010 this last January as it is a product that if it works, I really need for myself.  I live in a high desert rural valley in what is called the cell phone “dreadzone” – there is a signal, but it is so weak that I usually have to walk outside of my house to answer or to make cell phone calls.  And I have looked for many other reasonably priced solutions including putting an antenna on my roof with very limited success.  That is, until now.

Look at what the CelLynx 5BARz Road Warrior claims from their web site!

How could anyone with poor cell reception resist this unique product in a compact single package?  It weighs about a pound and the dimensions are approximately 5″ x 5″x 1.3″ so you could actually take it with you hiking as you do your GPS, remembering to bring a suitable battery pack or perhaps a laptop uninterruptible power supply (UPS) that can output 6W long enough to make an emergency 9-1-1 call.

Currently the Road Warrior retails for $299.99 but you can find it for as little as $200 after a $50 mail-in-rebate at Newegg.com.  Any other possible solution that I have found retails for many hundreds of dollars and they are not usually portable nor suited for taking with you in your car.

We first reported on the CelLynx 5BARz Road Warrior at CES 2010 here.   When the product became available last month, this editor requested a review sample for AlienBabeltech as we have been expanding our mobile product coverage for our readers.  We have been using the Road Warrior for just over a month and we feel we can give a good report to you as it as been tested in the most extreme situations using both voice and the data stream as we also tethered our notebook to our cell phone.

This editor was not the slightest bit interested in the Road Warrior as a mobile unit as my regular driving route takes me through very good reception areas with rare drop outs.  It is at my home that has the worst cell phone reception possible.  There is only one AT&T cell tower in my very rural valley and it has an “almost” line of sight to my phone.  My next door neighbor up the road (nearer the hillside) has zero reception and my next door neighbor down the road has great reception.  The result for me, in the middle, is a signal that is essentially worthless inside my home.

If I am lucky, the cell phone will ring and as I answer it, run for the patio.  It is very frustrating, especially in cold weather.  Of course, I have explored many alternatives in the past.  Up until now, the only solution that might have worked is to set up a commercial-type cell phone reception tower and a repeater type setup for many (many) hundreds of dollars.

What the 5BARz Road Warrior promises is an economical, simple and very personal solution to easily boost a cell signal from worthless to usable and even to excellent.  Did it deliver?  Well, read on as we examine this very unique product.  Let’s take a look at the packaging and the specifications of this unit on the following page.

The 5BARz Road Warrior comes in a box that also advertises its features.

Take a look at the back.

The contents are described here:The warranty is clear – satisfaction is guaranteed.

Here’s what is in the box:

• 5BARz Road Warrior Unit
• Cigarette lighter Gooseneck adapter
• Phone dock/cradle
• AC power supply
• iGo USB charging cable

Here are the contents of the package.

Setup in the CAR

• Connect the phone holder antenna to the back of 5BARz unit.
• Place the 5BARz unit on the dashboard and make *sure* you use the supplied tape fastener to hold it securely!
• Connect the  gooseneck cigarette lighter adapter to the phone holder with arrows separated and then twist it left to lock it.
• Next insert the gooseneck cigarette lighter adapter into the lighter socket and check for the blue LED on the front of the 5BARz unit.
• Place your cell phone in the phone dock/holder and use the button to adjust and firmly hold your cell phone.
• Use the switch on the side of the phone dock/cradle to turn it on.

Here is the included very clear photo instructions for a mobile installation:

Summary: In the car, you set up the 5BARz unit on your dashboard and connect the cradle to the cigarette lighter and simply sit the phone in the cradle and the signal improves.  The 5BARz Road Warrior’s adjustable dock will fit most mobile phones and also allows a pass-through USB connection that should allow the user to charge their phone in the car by using a standard power cable while also using the unit.  Your installation should look something like this:

Results of the tests are on the next page.

Setup in the home

Almost any phone mobile phone can set in this dock/cradle.  Here is a well-used Samsung A437 setting in the dock next to the 5BARz unit.  You always want to separate the unit as far as possible as the cord will allow from the phone in the dock unless an external antenna is connected.  Note that the phone is held by the rubber grippers so that the buttons on the side are not pressed by them.  Ideally, the internal antenna in the phone (on the bottom) should be as close as possible to the transmitting antenna in the dock which is also on the bottom of the cradle, if there is a really weak signal.  Under good conditions, the dock will transmit up to a foot or so away from it and the phone’s reception will be enhanced within that radius.

Looking at the dock itself, we note that it can be picked up and and the phone answered with the dock in hand, although normally one would use bluetooth or a speakerphone to have a conversation.  At home or in the office, the Road Warrior plugs into the wall and allows for a very short one to two-foot range where it actually boosts the signal and repeats it to your cell phone. If your signal is really bad, you will need to leave it in the cradle.

Here are the included instructions for setting up the 5BARz Road Warrior for indoor use.

There has been one improvement to the Road Warrior since it was first released for sale.  This editor noted that the stand was prone to tip over if one did not pay careful attention, and the company has already released an updated version with a wider stance.  Take a look at the picture below comparing the newer stand on the left to the older stand on the right (below).  Not only does the wider stance make it more difficult to knock it over accidentally, but also the fact that the phone holder has become less vertical improves its overall stability.  If you have the earlier unit, you just need to take a little extra care so as not to tip it over.

Turning the unit over, we notice that it does get warm to the touch and there are also large rubber feet to protect the surface it is on as well as keeping it securely in one place.

Here are the specifications:

These are the technical details:

The 5BARz Road Warrior looks incredible on paper, it is easy to set up and it promises much.  Let’s put it to the test.

The Tests

We carried out 4 basic tests.  First, we tested the unit in the home without an external antenna.  Then we tested it with an external antenna.  Then we tested the unit on the AT&T data stream to see if we could tether our laptop to our cell phone so as to access the Internet.  Finally, we put the unit in the car to test it as a mobile unit.

In the home, without an antenna originally, we had very mixed results.  Although the cell phone signal showed a definite improvement, there were rarely 5 bars and often calls would be dropped even after positioning the Road Warrior in a window.   Next, we tried an external antenna (optional) also offered by CelLynx which retails for $39.  After hooking up the antenna’s cable connection to the back of the unit, we tried again with the antenna stationed on the edge of the house’s roof, very near a window as the cable is only about 10 feet (3 meters) long.

The antenna cable’s connector goes into the far right of the 5BARz Road Warrior and the antenna was set on the edge of the roof; its magnet can affix directly to the roof of a car, onto the steel flashing of a roof or even onto a pie plate (or onto a hot plate as shown below) for good results.  CelLynx also plans to offer an antenna with a shorter 6 foot (2 meter) cable but it will be a suction-cup mount antenna.

With an antenna on the roof the difference was amazing!  Now there was a full strength signal where before there was none.  First, here is the phone with the Road Warrior unit turned off.  No reception!

As you can see, there is no usable signal whatsoever.  So, let’s turn the 5BARz Road Warrior on.  Immediately the front of the unit’s LEDs flashes blue and a few seconds later we see a big change.

We now have a full signal and can call or answer from inside the house whereas it was impossible before.  Next, we turn our attention to the data stream.  We have always wanted to tether our cell phone to our notebook and we actually had this service over 3 years ago.  However, after days of trying everything reasonable that AT&T support could suggest – including adding an external antenna to the roof – the data connect service was terrible and it was filled with constant disconnects.

Cell signal amplifiers aren’t new and many of the cell signal boosters from the major carriers will use your existing home Internet connection to help boost their cell signal with that network.  What is different is that the 5BARz Road Warrior promises to work no matter what network you’re on and it doesn’t require any kind of existing Internet connection other than the cell tower signal.  In my own case, it is impossible to use satellite broadband to help boost my cell phone signal so the Road Warrior fits my bill perfectly.  This time we tethered our notebook to our Samsung A437 by using it as a dialup modem and we had no problem with the AT&T data stream reception.  Road Warrior was in use for about 24 hours and there was not a single dropped connection to AT&T’s EDGE data stream.  As the picture below shows, you can also put your dock next to your data card dongle for another way to easily connect with a stronger signal to the wireless data stream, potentially making for faster speeds.

Connecting to our cell phone’s data stream is something that could never be done reliably in the house before.  It was impossible to practically use our cell phone tethered to our notebook to provide a wireless Internet connection using AT&T’s EDGE network. Though the Road Warrior did clearly improve signals, slow EDGE download speeds appeared largely unaffected during our limited testing.  Sometimes Internet speeds were a little faster with the booster and sometimes without, but there was really not enough variance to spot a trend.  However, we got no data stream disconnects with the 5BARz Road Warrior whereas we were continually disconnected without it.  We decided we liked the Road Warrior boost to the signal but not AT&T’s EDGE service which turned out to be barely twice as fast as 56K dialup and with much more ping.

To give you an idea of the relative ISP values available in my area, we know 56K dialup is painfully slow, yet “unlimited” NetZero for $6.95 a month gets me a consistent 48-53 Kbps speeds and a possible 13 GB a month of total data if it is connected 24/7.  It is best bang for buck for sure but if you need data fast, forget it.  Now take a look at the other two kinds of “high speed” ISPs offered in my area compared to each other.

You will note that although satellite is fast on the downloads, it is absolutely horrendous on the uploads and ping.  Worst of all, your $80 a month gets you a strict 17 GB download cap.

In contrast, using AT&T’s EDGE wireless Internet by tethering a cell phone to a notebook costs $50 a month and it is not much faster than two paralled 56K lines.  You are limtited to 5 GB of total data a month and prices rise dramatically if you go over your plan’s alottment.  This plan lasted less than 24 hours before I went back to satellite (plus 56K dialup).

This editor found that we could basically get the same slow download speeds with or without the 5BARz Road Warrior from AT&T’s EDGE network.  However, we suffered continual disconnects without the booster whereas we were not disconnected a single time in 24 hours while we were using the Road Warrior!  If you have access to 3G high-speed Internet on your cell phone, you will be able to surf at much (much) faster speeds than EDGE customers even in a poor reception area and will never have to worry about getting wi-fi or Internet access as long as you have at least a weak cell phone signal and your 5BARz Road Warrior.

In the car

Testing the Road Warrior in the car was an easy experiment.  I simply moved my 5BARz Road Warrior into my car and moved it a bit further up the road where the reception was even worse than in my house.  There is a point where there is zero reception and the Road Warrior just cannot help.  But the second a tiny signal showed up on the cell phone, the 5BARz unit boosted the signal very well.  Sticking the outdoor antenna to the roof of the car with its magnetic base provided better reception and in some cases made all the difference between boosting a usable signal and getting no signal at all.

When the 5 BARz Road Warrior doesn’t work

There are a couple of things to note: The 5BARz Road Warrior won’t improve cell phone signals where there are none to begin with. It needs some kind of signal to boost. According to CelLynx, there are a couple of situations where the signal may not be improved, including the reason cited above. Also, if there are too many signals and a great deal of interference is encountered or if there’s one very strong signal for one network nearby, the Road Warrior may not be able to amplify the strength of your own network’s weaker signal.

Compatability

The 5BARz Road Warrior is compatible with every carrier in the US and Canada except “iDEN” phones used by Nextel, Southern LINC, MiKE in Canada, 3G TMobile’s 3G services (except voice which is compatible) and WiMax.  To say it in more general terms, the 5BARz Road Warrior will work with any phone operating in the Cellular Band (850MHz) or the PCS Band (1900MHz).  On the 5BARz.com website there is a list of specific carriers, their frequency(s) of operation and their compatibility with the 5BARz system.  The path to the list is Support/Where We Work on the CelLynx website.

There are several reasons that a booster might not significantly improve connectivity:

1. The signal in the area is too weak, or there is simply no signal at all.  This can be due to the distance from the cell tower or due to environmental conditions, such as  hills, buildings, or trees blocking the signal.
2. Interference (noise) caused by more than one signal at the same frequency.  This would typically occur in metro areas with a high number of cell sites if you are at a high elevation as on a hill or in a high rise and the booster receives weak signals from more than one cell tower transmitting at the same frequency.
3. Close proximity to a cell tower that is not your carrier’s tower.  For example, if your carrier’s signal is really weak and you are trying to boost their weak signal and very near your location is a competing company’s cellular tower, the relatively strong signal from the competing cell tower could cause the 5BARz system to reduce the available boost in order to prevent sending signals that would interfere with your carrier’s system, thus decreasing the benefit to you.  Under extreme cases, the Road Warrior will shut down.  Both the shut down and boost reduction are to prevent network interference for the weaker cell carrier’s network.
4. Occasionally there will be too much traffic on a tower to allow all those who want to use it to connect, thus causing lack of connectivity even though you have sufficient signal strength.  This condition would normally be characterized by good connectivity at times and no connectivity at other times all the while with high signal strength.  This is a network issue, not signal strength issue and the Road Warrior would be working properly even though your calls are dropped intermittently.

When an external antenna becomes necessary

Based on the improvement that was achieved by using an external antenna, it is most likely that my home is in an area with a very weak signal outside that is effectively non-existent inside.  In many cases, the signal is reasonable outside and very weak inside, so the Road Warrior by itself without an external antenna is sufficient to give the desired connectivity.

In many foothill areas with a fairly densely populated suburban area with good cellular coverage, there may exist small pockets that have poor connectivity even though they are well within the cellular coverage area.  So even in medium density suburbs, there can be significant ‘dreadzones’.

Improving reception with the Road Warrior

Even the location of the phone in the cradle can make a significant difference in performance due to the location of the antenna in the phone relative to the location of the antenna in the phone cradle.  Typically, the closer the antenna in the phone is to the antenna in the cradle, the stronger the signal received by the phone will be.  With my Samsung phone, the internal antenna is at the bottom of the phone.  Since the antenna in the cradle is also at the bottom, it makes sense that the best performance is with the phone pushed to very the bottom of the cradle (even though the dock’s rubber grip interferes with the phone’s buttons in that position).

It should be noted that the location and the orientation of antennas in cell phones of different manufacturers varies and therefore the location of the phone in the cradle for best performance can also vary.  The 5BARz user can try moving their phone around in the cradle to determine what the best location is for their phone.  This includes trying the phone upside-down in the cradle.  The user should get some improvement in signal regardless of the location of the phone in the cradle, but by experimenting with the phone location is one means of optimizing performance.

Other things that one can do to optimize performance are paying attention to the relative location of the 5BARz booster to the phone cradle and the interface cable routing.  It is typically best to separate the 5BARz booster and the phone cradle as far from each other as possible and to avoid routing the cable over the top of the booster because it would then route over the top of the antenna that is in the booster.  In a poor indoor reception area, one might consider setting the 5BARz Road Warrior in a window.  These are actions that can be taken to optimize performance but are not necessary to get improved signal strength.

Conclusion

We really enjoyed testing something slightly outside PC hardware and the 5BARz Road Warrior does exactly what it promised, albeit in my own extreme case I needed to install an external antenna on my roof to get consistently excellent reception inside my house.  Although the Road Warrior is a unique product and an excellent value, it is not an inexpensive unit, so naturally we want to look at the guarantee and return policy.  The unit itself is warrantied for a year.

5BARz Guarantee

5BARZ Road Warrior turns dread zones into productivity zones keeping you connected to the people, data, and information you need most. The 5BARz Road Warrior has been tested by an independent laboratory and approved by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Our patent-pending 5BARz technology requires no outside antennas or cables. Just plug in and talk on.

As long as your carrier’s coverage map doesn’t state “no service” in your area, they guarantee 5BARz Road Warrior will improve signal strength in your vehicle and indoors. The ability to make calls indoors is dependent upon both the construction materials and location within the structure. If you purchase the 5BARz Road Warrior and are still unable to achieve 5BARz of connectivity, contact CelLynx support for additional direction or to authorize the return of the unit to the place of purchase.

The 5BARz Road Warrior is compatible with every carrier in the US and Canada except “iDEN” phones used by Nextel, Southern LINC, MiKE (Canada); 3G TMobile’s 3G services (TMobile’s voice service is compatible) and WiMax

CelLynx is a small public company of helpful and dedicated employees that provide excellent service and support for their product.  They are also currently working to secure financing to rollout a business or household device later this year that will bring the boosting capabilities of the Road Warrior to the entire home or office.  You will no longer be tethered to your cradle or to within a few inches of it.

The recently available 5BARz Road Warrior is a great product and it works as advertised.  The CelLynx employees also stand ready to assist you to troubleshoot your product if needed and if your home or work is somehow in even a worse reception area than mine, and it cannot work to your satisfaction, there is a satisfaction guarantee with your money cheerfully refunded.

After 30 days of testing and use, we can conclude that the 5BARz unit is a highly reliable and a powerful device for recreating a stronger cell signal and giving its user much better reception than without it. The Road Warrior unit retails for $299 with a one year warranty and an optional magnetic mount exterior antenna available for an additional $39.  From checking online pricing suggests that you can get it for as little as $200 after a fifty dollar mail-in rebate.  It is a real bargain if you suffer from poor cell phone reception or you use your car as an office.

We love it!  We liked the 5BARz Road Warrior so much that we made arrangements to buy the evaluation unit from CelLynx!!  It is an excellent product that does exactly what it promises in even the most extreme “dreadzone”.  As a unique product that fills an important need, the Road Warrior is deserving of our ABT “Innovation” and “Editor’s Choice” awards.  If we are going to nitpick it, the phone dock/cradle stand is a bit unstable (and has already been improved!) and the tether from the unit to the dock could have been made a little longer.  We had no major issues or irritations with it once we put an external antenna on our roof.

Highly recommended!

Mark Poppin

ABT Senior Editor

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«1. Introduction2. Setting up the Road Warrior3. The Test4. Conclusion5. View All»