Greetings from my laboratory. My house has become a hotbed of microwave radiation. I now have my old, reliable D-Link router/switch/access point, two Meraki mesh routers (one "mini" and one "outdoor"), and two Open-mesh routers working in and around my very small house. There are also a Linksys WRT54GS and a $40 OpenWRT box (purchased from the internet) kicking around here, as well. Oh, and just to be complete, I got myself a FON router and directional antenna, because it seemed like a handy thing and was very inexpensive.
While the popcorn is not quite popping itself, there is a lot or RF in the air here. Technically, all the Meraki, open-mesh, and FON boxes are roughly the same, running slightly different software. And, based on some informal testing, they all seem to work pretty well. There are some interesting differences: the FON box has two ethernet ports (which may make it impossible to turn it into an open-mesh box should that be my eventual goal). The Meraki mini is identical to the open-mesh routers, but the Meraki outdoor has a more powerful transceiver (200 mW instead of the 60 mW in the "minis").
Results to come...
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
...and then 11 months pass...
...and we're back. Briefly, Cisco didn't work out, and I'm glad to be back out on my own again. But my time there was valuable, and I am very grateful to them both for employing me for a few months and for letting me go gracefully.
I don't believe in a deterministic world, but I do believe that fate will sometimes whisper in your ear, and you should pay attention to it.
When I went to Cisco, we had been talking about the concept of farm wireless networks. There is value in having a wireless network on a farm, for data collection (soil sensors, irrigation systems, weather stations, yield monitors, telematics) as well as for internet access (being able to use your laptop from the tractor, for instance). In many ways, Cisco was a very good place for me to be surrounded by networking technology while I was thinking about this concept.
So I'm here, writing a business plan for a new chapter for Ayrstone, based on wireless networking and web technology. There are a lot of nice things out there that the agricultural world isn't using yet, and I want to bring some of the best of "silicon valley" technology to the "great midwest."
In particular, I'm excited about the possibility of using relatively low-cost "repeater" technology from Meraki, particularly their outdoor repeater and perhaps their upcoming solar model. I think that, by mating these to 12 dB gain antennas, we can actually light up a pretty fair area (one per section???). I'm thinking that, by using a network of 5-10 of these, covering a 2000+ acre farm should be possible for a few thousand dollars. My thinking is that, even if the signal goes three hops, you're still in the multi-megabit range with 802.11g, which is just fine.
The devil's in the details, of course, so we need to get out and prove the concept.
My Meraki equipment (and a couple of routers from open-mesh, and erstwhile competitor to Meraki) are on order. Should be fun...
Stay tuned!
I don't believe in a deterministic world, but I do believe that fate will sometimes whisper in your ear, and you should pay attention to it.
When I went to Cisco, we had been talking about the concept of farm wireless networks. There is value in having a wireless network on a farm, for data collection (soil sensors, irrigation systems, weather stations, yield monitors, telematics) as well as for internet access (being able to use your laptop from the tractor, for instance). In many ways, Cisco was a very good place for me to be surrounded by networking technology while I was thinking about this concept.
So I'm here, writing a business plan for a new chapter for Ayrstone, based on wireless networking and web technology. There are a lot of nice things out there that the agricultural world isn't using yet, and I want to bring some of the best of "silicon valley" technology to the "great midwest."
In particular, I'm excited about the possibility of using relatively low-cost "repeater" technology from Meraki, particularly their outdoor repeater and perhaps their upcoming solar model. I think that, by mating these to 12 dB gain antennas, we can actually light up a pretty fair area (one per section???). I'm thinking that, by using a network of 5-10 of these, covering a 2000+ acre farm should be possible for a few thousand dollars. My thinking is that, even if the signal goes three hops, you're still in the multi-megabit range with 802.11g, which is just fine.
The devil's in the details, of course, so we need to get out and prove the concept.
My Meraki equipment (and a couple of routers from open-mesh, and erstwhile competitor to Meraki) are on order. Should be fun...
Stay tuned!
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