I’m looking to do some short distance wi-fi signalling to a small wireless receiver which is connected by an ethernet cable to the network. Since I need to operate at fairly high data rates (ideally Gbps, but I can live with the slower 100 Mbps ethernet speed), ZigBee and Bluetooth don’t quite cut it for the wireless signaling, so I’ll be using wireless G/N. My only problem is that converting the wireless signal back to ethernet is proving difficult. There are plenty of wireless/ethernet bridges on the market but they are all gigantic, whereas much smaller wireless/USB dongles are available.
What I would like is a tiny wireless to ethernet bridge (“tiny” is used loosely here, but ideally the width of an ethernet jack and not incredibly long) instead of some giant linksys router. An inline wireless/ethernet dongle, which I can supply power to if required. The best thing I can come up with so far is using a USB dongle and then an inline USB to ethernet bridge, but this seems ridiculous and I have a feeling the USB spec doesn’t enjoy being an intermediary tunnel. Is there anything I can find or make fairly easily that will let me do this?
I haven’t done a wireless bridge, but you might want to look at the LinkSys NSLU2 (Slug) and the hacks for it. Google “NSLU2 wireless bridge” and/or go to the site that documents all things NSLU2, http://www.nslu2-linux.org/. I recently purchased a number of these for around $38 USD plus shipping.
I’m looking to do some short distance wi-fi signalling to a small wireless receiver which is connected by an ethernet cable to the network. Since I need to operate at fairly high data rates (ideally Gbps, but I can live with the slower 100 Mbps ethernet speed), ZigBee and Bluetooth don’t quite cut it for the wireless signaling, so I’ll be using wireless G/N. My only problem is that converting the wireless signal back to ethernet is proving difficult. There are plenty of wireless/ethernet bridges on the market but they are all gigantic, whereas much smaller wireless/USB dongles are available.
What I would like is a tiny wireless to ethernet bridge (“tiny” is used loosely here, but ideally the width of an ethernet jack and not incredibly long) instead of some giant linksys router. An inline wireless/ethernet dongle, which I can supply power to if required. The best thing I can come up with so far is using a USB dongle and then an inline USB to ethernet bridge, but this seems ridiculous and I have a feeling the USB spec doesn’t enjoy being an intermediary tunnel. Is there anything I can find or make fairly easily that will let me do this?
you need a tiny access point or client bridge.
Haven’t seen such. Lots of WiFi to serial bridges that are tiny.
Like Lantronix and ConectOne
I guess your application cannot work with 802.15.4’s speeds?
802.15.4 is ideal if your data rate and volume match the 250Kbps air link (80Kbps net) capacity. The '15.4 radios with full protocols built-in are just $20 or so. And trivial to interface.
You’d use WiFi only if there’s a high speed data need, or if the premise of the project is LAN/WAN connectivity versus, say, embedded sensors or some such where LAN/WAN is not applicable.
ConnectOne has a new smaller module but I have the predecessor. I think Mouser has them in stock. But the new one was to ship last month or this as I recall. They’re functionally identical. The one I have is mated to a microprocessor with my code in it. I’ve used AVRs and ARM7. It’s merely a serial port at 3.3V.