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Cheapest way to connect to WiFi

Former Member

What is the cheapest way to connect to WiFi?

 

Here is a cheap way I found, I am wondering if there is a cheaper and easier way to connect wifi.

 

With Arduino WiFi interfaces being real cheap if your order from China, or slightly less cheap if your order from the USA, it puzzled me that WiFi shields were so much more. Well, if you don’t need everything to fit inside a small Arduino case, you can just get one of the cheap Ethernet shields and then use one of these things

This $23 TP-LINK WR702N WiFi router is really teeny tiny (about 2″x2″ and .5″ tall), and comes with a short ethernet cable, USB cable, and USB power supply. It has several modes of operation, including the one you would expect — plugging up to an Ethernet jack and broadcasting it as a WiFi signal. But, it also has a Client mode, so you can plug it up via Ethernet to the Arduino and then use it as a WiFi card.

Configuration was a bit tricky because I didn’t know what I was doing, but basically, you plug it up to power (USB or power adapter), and configure it via your computer and an Ethernet cable. If your computer is already on a network that is 192.186.0.x (like mine was, from my home DSL router), you will need to disable that from your computer (turn off WiFi, or unplug the Ethernet cable). The instructions (on the website) tell you to change your computer’s IP address to 192.168.0.10, and then in your web browser you go to 192.168.0.254 (which is the router’s default IP address). Up loads an admin web page.

Type in the password (admin/admin), then click the easy setup button and select Client. It will then give you a screen where you can browse to the WiFi network you wish to join, and enter the password (if it’s a protected network) and encryption method used (again, if it’s a protected network).

Once you do that, the little box will reboot and then try to connect to that WiFi hotspot, and then get an IP address from it and link the Ethernet port to the WiFi… So, configure it, then unplug it from the computer and plug it to the Arduino and… your Arduino’s Ethernet code now talks out WiFi.

So, if you ever try to telnet in to my home Arduino, that is how the connection will be getting there.

  • Rodney?

     

    They are a great device.

    There are plenty of drivers for 3G wireless USB and you can reflash them with some of the open source router software that is around.

    It is pretty much a full router with MAC address filtering ( ie can ccept or reject certain MAC address), DHCP, Filtering, etc

     

    You will of course need an Ethernet shield for your Arduino (or a Freetronics EtherTen if you're on this side of the world).

     

    Again these seem to range in price from $10 or so through to almost the price of an Arduino board. ...strange for one IC and a connector.

     

     

    Thanks for sharing.

    Mark

  • If you have an old wifi router lying around you can turn that into a similar repeater device: http://lifehacker.com/5563196/turn-your-old-router-into-a-range+boosting-wi+fi-repeater

     

    It sounds like your question is mostly about Arduino connecting to Wifi, and there are a few options in the works for that:

     

    It looks like digistump.com is working on an Arduino board that includes wifi (and much more) for about $60.

     

    Also, the Arduino Yun (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoYUN) is supposed to be available soon, also about $60.

     

    I bet there's more in the works, but those are two I've seen so far.

     

    $60 is not a bad deal, considering the cost the separate pieces would be.

     

    If you don't specifically need Arduino, I think the RaspPi and Beagleboard-black allow you to plug in a usb wireless dongle to get a wireless connection.

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico