<div dir="ltr">Hello,<div><br></div><div style>The question of ad-hoc mode remains unanswered on the MK808B that we have here.</div><div style>As mentioned, it should be possible with some work, due to the use of a broadcom 4330 chipset.</div>
<div style>It is a public holiday here, so I can't try getting ad-hoc on it right now.</div><div style><br></div><div style>However, as I mentioned, I think a good longer-term strategy would be to work with one of the suppliers to make one using an atheros wi-fi chipset, so that we have the same happy goodness as on many of the OpenWRT devices -- but at the attractive price-point of these stick PCs.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>Also, getting power consumption down to ~1W makes a big difference for rechargeable/solar deployments, which I think will be important for both Commotion and Serval.</div><div style><br></div>
<div style>Paul.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 7:45 AM, Hans of Guardian <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:hans@guardianproject.info" target="_blank">hans@guardianproject.info</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><br></div><div>They're available for about US$40-70 on amazon:</div><div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/MK808-Android-Rockchip-RK3066-Cortex-A9/dp/B009OX22B4" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/MK808-Android-Rockchip-RK3066-Cortex-A9/dp/B009OX22B4</a></div>
<div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Android-Smart-internet-adaptor-dongle/dp/B009F8HS4E/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1366841516&sr=1-4&keywords=ug802" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/Android-Smart-internet-adaptor-dongle/dp/B009F8HS4E/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1366841516&sr=1-4&keywords=ug802</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>The have much faster CPUs that are also dual core. They include 4GB storage and have a micro-sd slot and USB. They are also ready to go with Android and the Play Store installed. I think they are probably a better deal than the RPi for working with wifi. Attach an external USB wifi, and you have a two radio device.</div>
<div><br></div><div>But this is all contingent on having decent adhoc support in the radio, of course.</div><div><br></div><div>.hc</div><div><div class="h5"><br><div><div>On Apr 24, 2013, at 6:07 PM, Dan Staples wrote:</div>
<br><blockquote type="cite">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
The Android sticks certainly do make a tempting platform for some
experimentation. I wonder, however, how they compare in
capability-versus-price with the Raspberry Pi. An RPi by itself
costs US$35, and has ethernet, 2 usb, 512MB RAM, 700 MHz single core
processor, and draws b/w 500-1000 mA @ 5 V (= 2.5-5 W if my physics
degree serves me well ;) ). Attach to that a dual-antenna
Atheros-based USB wifi adapter (e.g.
<a href="http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?model=TL-WN822N" target="_blank">http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?model=TL-WN822N</a>), which
can potentially do multiple virtual interfaces, one in ad-hoc and
the other in AP mode, and you got yourself a pretty capable gadget.<br>
<br>
And at a recent conference, I powered some wifi-enabled, meshing
RPis with simple battery packs. I've even powered them from 2 D
cells with a proper voltage converter, which could potentially power
a device for more than a day.<br>
<br>
Just another idea to throw into the mix... I think experimenting
with the android sticks is a great idea.<br>
<br>
cheers,<br>
Dan<br>
<br>
<br>
<div>On 04/24/2013 05:28 PM, Paul
Gardner-Stephen wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Hi all,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Sorry if you have already thought about and
discussed these devices, but they strike me as potentially
very interesting for both communities, in addition to our own
interest in them for the Serval Project.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We have been looking at some of the cheap
Android-based stick PCs as a possible platform for Serval Mesh
Extenders, such as the MK802ii and more recent MK808B. For
more about the Mesh Extenders and their long-range UHF packet
radios, refer to:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="http://developer.servalproject.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=content:meshhelper:main_page&#prototyping" target="_blank">http://developer.servalproject.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=content:meshhelper:main_page&#prototyping</a> </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>or:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="http://servalpaul.blogspot.com/2013/02/building-serval-mesh-helper-device.html" target="_blank">http://servalpaul.blogspot.com/2013/02/building-serval-mesh-helper-device.html</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>and subsequent posts to that blog.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The newer generations of the Android stick-PCs
have dual-core 1.5GHz ARM processors, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of
flash, dual-antenna 802.11n Wi-Fi (although the firmware is
not ideal, more on that later), USB host port, microSD slot,
and HDMI out, all in a tiny thing about 80mm x 35mm x 15mm
depending on the particular variant you get. You get all that
for under US$50, e.g., from <a href="http://geekbuying.com/" target="_blank">geekbuying.com</a>.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>These typically come with a root-enabled ROM, and
are very easy to flash with a complete new operating system.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thus compared with many wireless routers they have
much greater CPU and memory resources, and similar or lower
cost.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>What I wanted to discover what their power
consumption was, because I want to run them off battery for
really resilient deployments. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>While I was initially concerned about the power
consumption, I discovered that the later generation models can
perform useful services, including running Wi-Fi for about 1W:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="http://servalpaul.blogspot.com/2013/04/comparing-energy-consumption-of.html" target="_blank">http://servalpaul.blogspot.com/2013/04/comparing-energy-consumption-of.html</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The main issues that I have identified are likely
to be:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>1. The Wi-Fi antenna are little patch antenna,
which probably don't have that great performance. They could
be replaced fairly easily though, I suspect. On the up-side,
they do have two antenna for doing clever 802.11n things.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>2. The Wi-Fi firmware that comes with the ROMs I
have found don't include simultaneous AP and ad-hoc
capability, at least as far as I can tell. This would need
investigation. They apparently use a Broadcom 8330 based
Wi-Fi chipset in at least some variants, which leads to my
next point.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>3. The Wi-Fi chipset and design quality varies
between suppliers of these, as it appears that they are all
using a reference design of the RK3066 chipset, to which they
add Wi-Fi. Some use realtek or mediatek chipsets instead of
broadcom. Some implementations are better than others, e.g.,
some sub-optimal implementations seem to have a common
ground-plane between the Wi-Fi and USB, which reduces the
sensitivity of the Wi-Fi receiver. All this is both a negative
and positive. On the negative side, some variants might be
complete duds for our desired use-cases. On the positive
side, it might be possible to encourage one of these
manufacturers to make one with, for example, an Atheros Wi-Fi
chipset that is well supported by Linux, OpenWRT and Debian.
Related, I have yet to survey the complete OS image to see if
there are any other closed binary blobs hiding around the
place.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>4. There is no on-board ethernet port on the
cheaper models. This could be solved with a USB ethernet
adapter, or again, encouraging one of the manufacturers to
make a variant that is better optimised for our communities
needs.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If anyone in the community is interested in
working on porting OpenWRT and/or enabling simultaneous
AP+ad-hoc Wi-Fi on these, we can probably arrange to provide a
couple of MK808Bs to facilitate this.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Paul.</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset></fieldset>
<br>
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</blockquote>
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
Dan Staples
Open Technology Institute
<a href="https://commotionwireless.net/" target="_blank">https://commotionwireless.net</a></pre>
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