Comments on: A Tale Of Wonky Wifi Part 4: A Doubleheader Featuring 802.11B/G vs N, And WLAN vs Mesh

By: John Schnipkoweit

John Schnipkoweit — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:30:08 +0000

It is possible to use open-mesh gear/firmware (based on ROBIN) without their dashboard – but you will loose some of their “finish”. Their is no fee for using their dashboard – so I would advise you to atleast start with it. If you get adventurous and want to host your own mesh server (dashboard), the Open-Mesh dashboard is built on Orange Mesh – available here:
http://orangemesh.sourceforge.net/

By: mjgraves

mjgraves — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:31:01 +0000

It doesn’t seem so. You use their dashboard to administer the WLAN. However, from looking at the dashboard there is a way to have SSH access to a node, so perhaps that’s a good question to put to the folks at open-mesh.com?

By: EarloftheWest

EarloftheWest — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 06:56:23 +0000

I just spent the past several hours (interspersed with dinner and other activities) reviewing the open-mesh.com product. I’m interested in reading your continued review of the product.
It seems like a REALLY easy way to setup a mesh network. Much cheaper than spending hundreds of dollars on other providers Access Points.
For me, I would just need one Access Point. Can I control the thing at my home without an open-mesh account?

By: mjgraves

mjgraves — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:44:13 +0000

This is essentially what I’m doing as well since I have hardwired both the house and the office. I like wifi as a convenience but still believe in cat5 or 6 to hard wire device that are not portable. Even if I left it as a two node mesh I doubt that I’d have a performance issue.

By: PhoneBoy

PhoneBoy — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:38:24 +0000

At one time, I was doing the WiFi mesh thing with DD-WRT and Linksys routers. Now I am using two access points (same SSID, different channel) where they are hardlinked to the same LAN via Powerline Ethernet. I gain the benefit of extended range without losing bandwidth to “the mesh.”