[wsfii-discuss] Cheap mesh devices

Mon Jan 26 12:33:19 UTC 2009

Hi .

NS2 and NS5 are really nice hardware. Together with recent OpenWRT firmware it 
works nicely in ad-hoc mode and the driver supports ahdemo mode together with 
AP mode also (Madwifi VAP). Multiple mesh routing protocols are available - 
Batman, Batman-Experimental, Olsrd (all Layer 3), Batman-Advanced (Layer2) 
and others.

I doubt that the factory Ubiquiti firmware supports ad-hoc mode - it may be 
possible to enable it from the command line but it is unlikely stable. At 
least if it doesn't contain the patches that went into Openwrt in the last 3 
months. 

There are ready-to-go mesh firmware images for NS2 and other Atheros SoC based 
devices:
http://nightwing.lugro-mesh.org.ar/en/
http://www.blogin.it/

If you don't need a device shipped with waterproof housing - I like D-Link 
DIR-300 - 4 port switch, Atheros SoC, tested with up to 1V5 DC supply, power 
consumption around 2 Watts, for less than 30 Euros. However I use it with a 
self-compiled image on the command line. Not sure there is a easy-to-use 
firmware image yet.

Cheers,
elektra 