Just got to see first hand how amazing fractal antenna tech is.

Ordered a Wemos d1 mini (v1.0), an ESP8266 based chip, and it came with the antenna broken off the board.

Tried it as-is, and it barely detected my wifi (-98db) not 3 meters away, and wouldn't connect.

Did a nasty hot-air repair to put it back on, and now shows -49db, plus 7 other APs of my neighbors. -84db 4 houses down, and the worst is -92db likely even further away.

top/left is proper unit, lower/right is my crappy repair