Solar Powered Wi-Fi

inkslinger77 writes "A small US startup has announced it has created a system for running Wi-Fi routers in remote places using only the power of the sun. Among the first round of products from Solis Energy is the Solar Power Plant, touted as being capable of supplying 12, 24 and 48 Volts DC for use in stand-alone applications such as surveillance cameras and outdoor Wi-Fi."

Comments

Bright idea

[LiquidCoooled]

Its always illuminating to see developers take a lateral step towards problems.

Here in the UK we use the tiny amount of light to power calculators but I think you would need a panel at least 3km square.

Re:Bright idea

[wvmarle]

You are talking about a mesh network. Should go fine. Maybe add a directional aerial to connect to it's peers over slightly longer distances, saves a 100% overlapping network.

Re:Bright idea

[Eivind]

Yeah. Why not ? A mesh-network is ideal in many parts of the world with poor infrastructure. Sure, the mesh needs to connect to the internet at *some* point, if internet-access is desired, but it's sufficient for a small portion of the nodes in the mesh to have internet-connection that can then be shared with the others.

Been around a while....

[butlerdi]

There have been several such projects such as the MIT http://www.green-wifi.org/ which is itself beholding to the MIT Roofnet project http://www.comclub.org/roofnet/.

And this is 'news'?

[chris_sawtell]

Here's a link for an historical perspective.

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/144812 1

Note 2002, FIVE years ago.

solar powered hovering wireless routers

[egumtow]

The issue of power has always been a problem for wireless technology. Even though the signal can, in theory, go anywhere, in practice the lack of available - or affordable - power can often stymie installation.

I disagree.

At least for outdoor municipal wifi, the routers are usually mounted on utility poles. There's no shortage of cheap power on utility poles!

You can make the argument that it might not be mounted on a utility pole. Like somewhere indoors. But then that renders the solar aspect pretty useless.

What we really need are solar powered wireless wifi routers that can autonomously position and hover themselves at a fixed location. Now that'd be cool, and useful.

Exactly (time investment)

[choseph]

And that is the key -- it is a pre-built set of products.

I could also create something for my shed if i want to look into manufacturers for quality and price, choose the individual components, ensure I knew how they all went together (safely), and mount it on the shed. Just like I don't have the time or interest in building computers from scratch anymore, I don't have the interest in investing all this time into building a custom solution. If they can give a warantee that covers their whole package, they can test the configurations and crazy outdoor conditions, and they can build thousands of them in the time it takes me to assemble one, then super. They aren't stopping you from creating your own custom product for your shed.

I wish someone would make some entry level package like this for homes -- a solar cell, simple cables (as easy as a power cord you can plug into each side), and a battery. Then give me some ways to go battery-out to random appliances and I think it would be a good way to let people try solar without the 10K+ investment and installation knowledge. Even if I only get enough juice to charge my laptop, it is at least a way to get started/interested.

This is old old old

[Anonymous Coward]

We have been doing this in ham radio for better than 20 years! There are several repeaters in the porltand area that run only on wind and solar, one entire repeater network (AB7F) runs only on wind and solar. Even more impressive when you consider the fact the transmit power can range from 20 to 100watts. They also usually have computers and RF based internet links at these sites to provide IRLP access, which is used to connect repeaters via voip. If anyone thinks this technology is new, and cutting edge, they should have the shit slapped out of them!

Ben 'Polyhead' Smith
KE7GAL

But not to my living room...

[wvmarle]

City-wide or country-wide WiFi sounds very cool to me. But - walls are a serious problem for WiFi. This in contrast to GSM signals, however in the concrete jungle called Hong Kong (with like 6 or 8 networks), even GSM is not everywhere available, particularly indoors.

I've wireless at home. It has a problem sometimes penetrating the two concrete walls between my living room (where the access point is) and my bedroom (where I sometimes use my laptop as well). I live on the 16th floor, a wireless access point on the ground level will never reach my living room. The penetration is too poor, and the distance is too long. So for city-wide WiFi, are there better solutions available?

In the countryside the problems are of course different - mountains are in the way and distances are often huge. Yet GSM networks are already fully covering even sparsely populated countries like Sweden and Norway. Is there a way do do so for WiFi without setting up repeaters every 500m? Is there a way to penetrate walls like GSM signals do?

The technology is nice, I love it. But at this moment for wireless networking on the go I will continue to use my mobile phone, over GPRS (yes we have UMTS available but that is mighty expensive, not worth it for me). It ain't fast, but it is virtually everywhere available, and has no problem keeping a connection when sitting in the train (try that with WiFi that is not in the train itself).

All and all I wonder, why not use the existing GSM networks? Most developed countries have UTMS available everywhere (USA is a developing country when it comes to digital technology, sad as it may be). Isn't that much more convenient, and cost efficient to use than a newly built WiFi network? There are more and more unlimited wireless plans (in Hong Kong you pay about US$80-100 per month for unlimited UTMS, add say US$200 a month for unlimited UTMS/GPRS roaming in mainland China). It's there, it's ready, and it's getting cheaper fast.

Re:But not to my living room...

[Archimonde]

I know it is a bit OT, but in my experience penetration of wifi signals is pathetic. I have wrt54g some time now and I had problem connecting to it from my laptop just three walls/rooms away (same house, thick walls though). After a while I decided to have a computer in the house opposite to the house mentioned previously. It is around 50m distance and 2 walls (wireless router is behind the window). Not a chance. I then had to drill a hole in the wall, put the pc's antenna outside and then eventually had a weak signal even though the router and pc's antenna were in LOS. It was working ok for a few weeks and in that time I certainly noticed degradation of signal and consequently the speed. After a week or so, I completely lost the signal. I realized it was some leaves (wtf?!) from a tree blocking the LOS. I had enough of it then, and decided to spend 10euro and stretch a cat5 cable. It works amazingly now. High speed, reliability, no 1-minute ping spikes (especially in vista, I don't use it no more though), or additional drivers.

I just have a feeling from my humble experience that wifi is overrated concerning real-world range.

Slashdotted?

[6Yankee]

TFA is taking an age to load. Either it's slashdotted, or the sun went in...

Re:Slashdotted?

[ebolaZaireRules]

nah - DOS attack. I'm stading in front of it.