Network Cable Tester with Optical Power Meter PoE Multi-Function, Wire Tracker RJ11 RJ45 LAN Cable Toner Cat5 Cat6 Ethernet Cable Tracer with NCV, Port Flash, Support Type-C Charging, B

Probaly a bit of an over-kill for the average home user, unless your an IT Nut who has installed LAN / fibre cables / switches / server in his house and attic, yep, I'm describing myself. If your a network cabling technician, this is invaluable for work and also your home if you've cabled it out with Cat 5 /6 . It can work out faulty cables, straight or cross-over types, cable length, switch problems, and problems with fibre optic cables.It has a nice bright display and with easy readouts, it's a nice bit of kit to have in your tool bag, all for a very good price, it come with a small hand book which is very useful.Yashi

Great features for the price point.Of course there are better tools out there but nothing in this price range has the same feature set!There are reviews knocking it for missing features, and comparing it to Fluke and the like, but you must realise the enormous price difference.Pros:Easy to useSaves carrying multiple tools (VFL, network cable tester, toner)Feels like acceptable qualityBattery life is good.Features all seem to work as expected. Length measurement is accurate give or take a couple of metres.Cons:It’s quite huge. Uses up a lot of space in a backpack!The receiver unit seems to turn on very easily. Multiple times I’ve got it out my bag and the receiver unit is on and gone flat.No alternative fibre connection options. The screw on adaptors are for SC, unscrewing these allows you to insert an ST, but an adaptor for LC would be a great addition.

For the price this isn't a bad bit of kit. I comnpared the results of an optical test on this, with a professional OTDR costing a great deal more. I was quite surprised how close they were, merely 0.5dB difference in received signal strength. Note that all fibre ends were thoroughly cleaned before conducting the tests.The Ethernet tests are equally decent. Again, perhaps not up to the spec of high end expensive kit, but what do you expect for the price. The unit performs all the tests it claims it can, and is very useful overall. The tracer is a little lacking though as it is not selective enough, but can still help to narrow down to a few cables in a bunch.Would I have another? Actually yes I would, based purely on the cost. If I were to lose one of these, I'd be annoyed, whereas if I lost one costing more than 10 times the price as many professional units are, I'd be utterly devastated, and well out of pocket

I work in offshore energy, working on a ship that has 1000s of network cables and fibre optics, I have found this cheap tool priceless for tracing, testing, locating, cable lengths, testing poe. DB loss on fo. Several colleagues have bought the same device after using mine. The vessel has basic fluke testers but as a contractor we don't get access to them, cost is prohibitive as a side tool.Usbc charging is a bonus, how many times I have pulled the old continuity tester out the draw with a discharged pp9 battery, try getting one offshore.Digital tracing has worked well isolating a cable in a bundle of 50+ cat6 cables, analogue I haven't found a use for.Cable length has been useful for identifying random unmarked cables running in ceiling panels that can't be traced, by eliminating cable hubs further away than cable length. There does appear to be a limit on length as I have never got a cable longer than 100m but I haven't had it long.Continuity is good for identifying poorly crimped RJ45 connector. Saved me 1000s of steps try to locate a dodgy connection.If you work with cat network cables this is a must.We use mainly FO ST bayonet connectors, adapters for this unitCan be found on ebay.

I was hesitant getting this as the cost difference between it and 'pro' tools was significant so I wondered what the catch was. I'm very glad I bought it as it's been a real life saver primarily for checking fibre runs at a multicampus site I manage, which has a spiders web of fibres of all sorts of types and quality. Often we had to resort to getting a 3rd party out to check the fibres which caused delays and was expensive, especially as we just wanted to verify if we could get a light down it for a later project.The tester allows me to test both single and multimode fibre patch cables and longer runs in the range of kms. This is a basic dBm reading, but is plenty for me. It does require a device on the send side to push light down, so a switch with an SFP is required for me to test a long run and verify the light is coming to the remote site. It does however have a basic red LED / laser light it can push down, but if you want to test the full run you'll either need to loop it back or have a second unit on the other side.If using for the fibre checking you will want some patch cables, SC at the tester end to various ends and of single & multi mode for the other end (unless your site uses a consistent connector type)I've not really used the other functions much, but the toner does work fine as do the copper cabling test tools. PoE checking is handy too.What it doesn't do, and I really wish it did, is CDP / LLDP on the copper port.Battery life is brilliant. I've not charged it since I bought it a year ago.A great tool for quick validation of links and cables which can be thrown in a bag for each technician while the bigger / expensive 'pool' tool stays in the office for fallback.