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GENRIP for Ultra Low Cost Wireless Deployments
Gregory Perry writes "A South Florida company just released GENRIP, an open source (as in GPL) project for Linux that turns low cost serial line devices (such as 900 Mhz radios) into IP addressable nodes; right now the technology is being used by various robotics groups to replace existing wired tethers on robots with wireless radio links, but the important thing to mention is the ability to use cheap radios to create wireless lan segments without the power and cost requirements associated with 802.11 WLANS."
pringles can?
They even state that it isnt a replacement for 802.11.
Unless you're moving relatively small amounts of non-critical information, GENRIP is probably not for you. GENRIP does not even attempt to compete with 802.11 wireless LAN equipment.
802.11b runs in the 2.4 GHz band and is interrupted by 2.4 GHz phones, microwaves, and various other devices. This thing runs at 900 MHz, and there are most definitely more 900 MHz phones out there to interrupt this signal. For small groups, maybe this'll work. But unless everyone is going to go back to a corded phone or upgrade their phones to 2.4 GHz, this won't work very well. Cheap, sure, but reliable and effective? Probably not.
Possibly. It's based on STRIP, which has a Mac port sort of. OSX would have a much easier time of running this than OS 9, obviously, since I think it needs slattach and net-tools. I'm not 100% sure though.
,
faeryman
This GENRIP project is based largely in part on the STRIP project at Stanford.
(And no, the STRIP project is not the name of the film crew for Girl Geeks Gone Wild - Winter Vacation In SoCal either. It stands for STarmode Radio IP.)
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I can imagine having some critical item hooked up (for example an O2 tank for grandma) to a computer for monitoring of regulation, and teenager gets on cordless phone to dial her friend, and the 02 tank goes crazy with full force, blowing up grandma like a cartoon balloon. - Not a good thing
What happens when you get a call? Even if you don't answer it the phone still sends the ring signal.
Fine, the equipment may be cheap -- and it sounds like you get what you pay for. But what about the cost of man hours it takes to get this up and running. Not to mention the man hours it will take to support some hodge-podge solution to wireless. For all the trouble you will have to go to to get this crappy solution going, you could afford 802.11b that works out of the box on most distros anymore.
If you want to save some money cutting corners, then build some cheap pringles cantennas or something.
-gerbik
Have any of you priced serial radio modems recently?
We're talking far, far more expensive than even the more expensive wireless Ethernet cards. Check this out: Arrick's wireless links.. $650.
Perhaps there are some modules that, in a manufacturing situation, are pretty cheap. But you're going to have to spend a lot, unless you're interested in developing with TI's transceiver modules. Break out a very tiny soldering iron and a magnifying glass, those flatpacks can get pretty small (this I say right before actually soldering a similar sized chip).
...
With a minimal amount of porting I'm sure this can be used on any platform. But for use in embedded systems *nix is (IMHO) always the best choice, so it's logical they decided to shoot that direction at first.
:)
As a side note, lan parties could get very interesting using this technology...
Having said that, easily microcontroller interfacable 802.11b devices are (at least by rumor) beginning to show up on the market. I have no idea what the cost is tho.
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Look, if you guys can't afford a few cans of Pringles, I'll chip in a few bucks...
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Check your kernel sources. Enable the ax.25 kernel modules and you too can enable tcp/ip over serial devices.
Add in the supplemential toys which include a niftly "inted"-style super server and you can have it fire applications off on that serial lan, or use kernel routing to route to the Internet.
Spiffy.
According to this document, the Microhard MHX-910 has a range 20 miles (line-of-sight) or more. I'm guessing (and hoping) this is omnidirectional. That could prove to be very useful in many applications where the omnidirectional range of 802.11b doesn't cut it!
:^)
Also, did anybody notice that the company's name, "Microhard", is the opposite of "Microsoft"?
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those radios are MORE expensive than 802.11 cards.
I can get a pair of 802.11 cards for $20.00 each on ebay (ISA type not pcmcia) or even cheaper is the old wavelan cards.. Granted I cant talk to embedded items like a 68hc11 or a Pic with an ISA card, but for what they are trying to do, it's certianly a whole bunch cheaper than buying the 910MHZ devkits they are using..
when someone says "ultra low cost" I expect it to mean "cheaper than what you can do now."
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