Tue

Jun 5
2007

Brady Forrest

Brady Forrest

Meraki's Solar WiFi Repeater

meraki solar kit

Later this summer Meraki is releasing an outdoor WiFI repeater. They are also releasing a solar accessory kit that will enable to the repeater to hum along without being hooked up to an electric outlet. Cool.

The repeater will send out WiFi signals 700 ft. The repeater and solar kit combo will cost just under $150. Meraki shares these details in their announcement:

The Meraki Outdoor is an indoor/outdoor repeater that supports high gain and directional antennas and works with other Meraki repeaters to create robust networks. Features include:
* - Unique industrial design (weatherproof plastics, easy to mount)
* - Dual SSID supports public and private networks on the same connection
* - Long-range support (400-700 ft; 6-18 miles with antenna)
* - 2 x 100Mbit Ethernet ports
* - Low-cost: $99

The Meraki Solar accessory kit enables consumers to power their outdoor Wi-Fi with solar energy and is ideal for rural or urban settings.

* - First solar repeater for the consumer market
* - Regulates its own energy usage, providing up to 3x energy efficiency
* - Pricing will be set this summer but the Meraki Solar will clearly be the most affordable option on the market

This is a great thing for communities. I'm able to share with next-door neighbors very easily but much further away my signal dies. I am looking forward to trying it out. It would make using services like Speakeasy's Netshare that much easier.

[via Gizmodo]


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Comments: 6

  rektide [06.05.07 04:15 PM]

looks promising, at a promising price point.

the diy wifi router community has been doing well, but its hard finding reasonable priced solutions that can sport the two wifi cards required for repeating. the new routerboards allow people to put together repeaters on the cheap, which is good. magicbox is another great low cost solution. unfortunately i dont believe either of these have usb host, which just about every other board on the planet has. a common alternative is installing two units, which makes sense when units cost $50 a piece. in a much larger sense, the ability to throw together new hardware boards has gotten much easier with each new progression in integrated system on chip as each chipset handles more and more onboard and requires less and less passive componentry: the results have been self evident in pricing and time to market.

the technical capabilities to setup your own repeating network are very stringent: too illiberal a forwarding mechanism and packets will get bounced around ad nauseum. having a scalable stable standard practice & procedure for creating directed or mesh networks would be a boon to enthusiasts, but everyones solutions end up being highly tailored to their own use and divergent from being able to serve as a standard practice.

the one thing i'd like to see is more outdoor casing available with integrated sector antennas. in terms of metropolitan class network deployment, i think the availability of reasonably priced case/antenna combos would be a huge boon. i dont see why this should cost more than $25.

i idle in #openwrt on freenode: good wifi talk all night long. all are invited. =]

  Anonymous [06.12.07 07:52 AM]

The real problem is the root providers who have nasty policies about how you can use your access. Cable and DSL companies all bet on people not actually using what they pay for.

  Martin Olsson [06.13.07 01:50 AM]

This looks really cool, but it is still too expensive. How do we make solar powered wifi-devices really really cheap? Like $1 or $10?

  Mike Rosenberg [06.26.07 04:07 AM]

One point that seems to get lost in discussions of Meraki is that in addition to forming a mesh network, the range of the individual routers is startling. I was skeptical of the website's claims and so tested them using a MacBook (i.e. decent Wi-Fi device). Line-of-Sight range was 220m, and with one inside my friend's flat in Cambridge, MA (brick walls, a few windows), we still managed range of 72m - a tad better than your average WRT!

And I actually think there's an enormous market for a solar-powered version at this price point. We started selling the mini units ($49) in Mozambique, where we found people already bought D-Link wireless routers for more (no mail-in rebates there!). People in Mozambique don't buy wireless routers so they can surf the web on their couch or in their bedroom - they buy them so they can charge their neighbors to use their broadband connection.

Broadband there is expensive and unreliable, if you are lucky enough to live in Maputo or Beira. Businesses opt for V-SAT ($3000/month for 1.5Mbps). But with just a few of these you can blanket a neighborhood and internet becomes affordable. Add solar power and external antennas and neighboring villages have a hotspot (easily monetized with Meraki's dashboard software).

  Fabuka [08.07.07 10:59 AM]

I keep seeing information about the possibility of obtaining 6-18 miles range with the meraki minis when used with an antenna.
Can someone please tell me which antenna and equipment could be used to attianed this distance?

  Karl Wagner [09.12.07 08:41 PM]

@ Fabuka [08.07.07 10:59 AM]
"Can someone please tell me which antenna and equipment could be used to attianed this distance?"

Use this, on both ends: http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/hg2424g.php

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