hpcfactor 1st ! Router in my car

From the ever bizarre wallyworld comes yet another absurd use of technology.

I mounted a wifi router in my car

When you've finished peeing yourself with laughter hear out my reasons.

I carry two or more wifi devices on my travels. (1 or two hpcs, Amity tablet, piddle, Tungsten.)

I have ZERO bluetooth cards or adapters. So what easier way is there to shuffle files from device to device while on the road? Without carrying an army of flash-pcmcia adapters or ethernet wires? Without trying to line up IR ports in a car?

Yep. A wifi router in my car. Why not? Now it doesn't matter if I forget a flash adapter or a serial or usb cable. I can transfer files and programs. I can sync.

Best of all, I can wardrive on myself

Sorry, not even close to first. I've had a in car computer system for at least 5 years now. My car is online whenever I drive thank to an EDGE enabled cellphone that connects to the carputer via bluetooth. I use ICS to share the connection to the carputer's ethernet port, which has an a/g wireless AP connected to it. My car is one big driving hotspot!

bummer for me. But good to get this kind of thing into the public eye. How many others I wonder have something similar?

Priceless!

Come to think of it, I've always wanted to have a tailgate LAN party. That would be cool, like 10 or 12 people with laptops in their cars, all parked in the parking lot of a huge pizza parlor, with wireless gaming galore! We might need a few extension cords. I should call my friends and set that up sometime...

Wow. I can't believe I thought of that!

EDIT: Not trying to steal your idea...

Edited by CardBoardCrusader 2006-04-03 12:25 AM

That sounds like a lot of fun. Any excuse to get together with friends is good. It gets even better when gaming and PCs are involved. But outside? That's the greatest idea of all.

Everyone accuses us gearheads of staying inside too much...

I took a group of students who I mentor in robotics down to a regional competition in Portland a month ago. A couple of the students in my car we online in my car and a couple more we also online in a van. They had to stay pretty close to stay connected, as most cars these days have metalicized glass that interferes with wifi signals.

Hi,


Hmmm, I just have two words for this: "ad-hoc networks" Well OK maybe it's 3 words if you think "ad-hoc" is really two words, but anyway.... Unless you wanted to share a GPRS connection among multiple devices in your car, which would be simultaneously cool and silly. *Imagines kids in the back seat with their Xboxes and backseat LCD monitors, playing network games while parents drive*

That's the first thing that came to my mind, ad-hoc. IMO it's easier, faster and more reliable than BT file transfer, yet no one seems to think of it when they spend way too long trying to establish their BT conn.

For the car LAN party thing... there's this problem with power. If we're talking about gaming laptops, it's usually power hungry. The laptop batteries won't last long enough for one game (whatever kind), and even your car battery would hate you if you run a couple of such laptops off it for hours.

I thought about ad-hoc also. IIRC it's limited to 2 units unless all your cards have enhanced ad-hoc or something similar.

Since I don't have BT gear I needed a cheap right away solution. When I find time I'll wire the 12v wifi router into my cars' power. The router is a tiny Belkin G

Does anyone make a "pocket" AP with a Lion battery? It would be a neat gizmo for uses like mine or informal wifi groups.

I suppose we'll see wifi APs in cars from the factory sometime.

I think a good spare car battery would run even a greedy laptop for a long time. Some car batteries are rated at >300 amp hours IIRC.

I never heard of ad-hoc being limited to 2 units. I just Googled a little and I quote: "Performance suffers as the number of devices grows, and a large ad-hoc network quickly becomes difficult to manage." That pretty much implies there can be a lot more than 2 in ad-hoc. Perhaps you confused it with the Sith?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_two

Building on that, I think ad-hoc pretty much defeats the purpose of mobile APs, battery powered or car integrated. There are of course mini-APs that plug into the wall socket, which would be best for your uses, that is if you still insist on infrastructure.

Actually, theres a big community on Car PC out at www.mp3car.com . I've been planning one for my Alfa since mid last year, but budgets not quite there yet, time is definitely not there yet, and the car is miles away from being there! Used to work on rudimentary telematics when I was studying in the US, technology nowadays... the sky pretty much is the limit!!

You talking about Windows Automotive 5.0? (I heard fanfare about this, but I don't know if it ever came out.)

As for the tailgate party idea, being from California I'd feel right at home at one. For backup power, you can always haul a few of those portable car jumpers and a few power inverters. (Won't even need the car then, except maybe to provide the tailgate.)

Bonjour would work. Its in MacOS X, you can also get a windows version of it. It allows you to create a wireless networks without config.



Nick

well i have never had problems with file transfer over bluetooth. it all depends on the implementation, for example if the manufacturer wwas kind enough to provide a bt file browser or similar.

as for ad hoc, it sure isnt limited to two devices, ive used ad hoc between three devices without any problems.

cool ideas, i dont have a car though and live too far.

Edited by cmonex 2006-04-03 7:50 AM

Hi,

Ad-Hoc definately isn't limited to 2 units. The only problem with more than 2 units in ad-hoc mode is collision detection. It's a problem with infrastructure mode as well (i.e. only one person can talk at a time). The AP handles collision avoidance in infrastructure mode, whereas in ad-hoc mode the cards have to sort it out for themselves.

Besides, if you need it for quick file transfers, why do you need more than 2 devics connected to the network at a time?