A little technical talk about WiFi

Leave a reply

Adam Gittins has published another terrific post on his Precision Ag Explained blog about problems he ran into getting his AyrMesh network up and running.

It reminds me that WiFi isn’t entirely straightforward, and some explanations of the vagaries are in order.

As Adam points out, interference is potentially a huge problem on WiFi. One problem is that the 2.4 GHz. WiFi band was partitioned out into 11 channels (in the U.S. and Canada), but most of those channels actually OVERLAP each other. There are only THREE DISTINCT CHANNELS: 1, 6, and 11 – all the other channels overlap at least one of these three (and each other). For a good explanation with graphics, I always recommend Wikipedia.

As he points out, if you have your “indoor” WiFi and your “outdoor” WiFi on the same channel, they’ll interfere with each other, reducing the range and bandwidth of both. Even if they are less than five channels apart this will happen to some degree. The AyrMesh network always comes by default on channel 6, so you can either change your home router’s channel to 1 or 11, or change the AyrMesh channel using your account on AyrMesh.com.

InSSIDer – courtesy of MetaGeek

We use and recommend a couple of tools to help discover WiFi interference. InSSIDer for Home is a free program that run on Windows, Mac, or Android, and shows all of the WiFi Access Points in range of the computer and a pretty good estimate of the signal strength of those Access Points. (NOTE: It has recently been pointed out that getting InSSIDer for Home from the Mac App Store actually costs $4.99)

WiFi Analyzer for Android, Courtesy of farproc

WiFi Analyzer is another free app that runs on Android. It’s a little simpler and quicker than InSSIDer, and has become my “go-to” solution for taking a “quick look around” on my phone.

It’s worth noting that there is no analogous app for the iPhone because Apple doesn’t allow direct access to the WiFi card. However, there are similar apps available if your iPhone is jailbroken.

Chanalyzer Spectrum Analysis, courtesy of Metageek

Just to make it a bit more interesting, however, I have to point out one more fact: WiFi is far from being the only thing using the 2.4 GHz radio band. Cordless phones, baby monitors, wireless surveillance cameras, certain radars, and microwave ovens all use the same spectrum, so they can all potentially interfere with your WiFi. This is, in fact, precisely why Metageek gives away InSSIDer – they sell tools called “Spectrum Analyzers” – their “Wi-Spy” Spectrum Analyzers are excellent and relatively inexpensive. They can show not just WiFi interference, but all the interference in the 2.4 GHz. band. They even offer a very nice “Wi-Spy mini” bundled with their “InSSIDer for Office” product for only $199.

You probably won’t need a spectrum analyzer for your AyrMesh network. Out in the country there’s very little interference, and it takes a while to learn how to use a spectrum analyzer effectively, even with Metageek’s excellent software.

However, getting a copy of InSSIDer and/or WiFi Analyzer is something I recommend to everyone who’s curious about their local WiFi environment.

Great post on “Precision Ag Explained”

Leave a reply

Not really Adam – just a picture I thought was funny.

Adam Gittins of HTS Ag got an AyrMesh Hub2n a few weeks back, and he has published a great post about it on the outstanding blog “Precision Ag Explained.” The post helps explain how Wireless Farm Networking is going to drive better and more efficient farm operations in his view.

Here’s hoping we can see a lot more from him in the future – we really appreciate having someone of his experience and expertise writing about Ayrstone.

New Ayrstone Product: the AyrMesh Hub2n

3 Replies

Today is the second most exciting day of Ayrstone’s existence – second only to the day we started. The introduction of the Hub2n marks a new era in wireless farm networking – even though the white plastic case is exactly the same as the old Hub, and the electronics inside are fairly similar, the software running on those electronics make it truly revolutionary.

The most important and exciting thing about the new Hub2n is that it introduces the concept of the “transparent mesh.” This means that you can build out your AyrMesh network across your farm or other rural business or homestead, but all the devices attached to the Hubs and Receivers in your network get their IP addresses from the router your AyrMesh Gateway Hub2n is attached to. This means that building and managing your AyrMesh Network is no more difficult than building a home network with your home router. In particular:

  1. Devices attached to your AyrMesh network will be in the same IP subnet as your router. If your router, for instance, is configured to create a private network with addresses of the form 192.168.1.x, then everything on your AyrMesh network will have IP addresses in that same form.
  2. All devices on your network will appear in the DHCP table or client table of your router.
  3. You can port forward from your router to any device in your network, whether it’s plugged directly into your router or miles away connected via WiFi to an AyrMesh Hub.

This means that, using the new Hub2n, you can easily build a farm-wide network that can be used for:

  • Internet access – even in places with no cellular signal
  • A reliable, high-bandwidth local-area network for remote sensors like cameras, thermometers, and weather stations, and
  • A high-speed, internet-accessible network to control devices like web-controlled relays and thermostats.

With the new Hub2n available, the revolution in Wireless Farm Networking can really pick up steam! Now there’s no reason not to have a farm-wide network to gather information and start automating operations on your farm.

A different approach to WiFi cameras: Dropcam

7 Replies

I have been using a Dropcam for about a year now and have been very impressed with it. It is a very low-cost WiFi IP camera that, instead of offering local viewing through a webserver on the device, automatically streams its video to Dropcam’s servers, where you can view the video from anywhere on the Internet.

Just to review, the way a “normal” IP camera works is that it has a webserver on the device, and you access that webserver in order to view the video from the camera. For instance, if you connect the camera to your router, you’ll check the router to find its IP address – let’s say, for instance, that it’s 192.168.1.47.

You then use a web browser to view http://192.168.1.47, and your camera shows up there. However, if you want to view  your camera from outside your network, you have to “port forward” a port to the web port on the camera. A number of factors can make that operation difficult.

The Dropcam does away with all of that, because the camera is only attached to your computer with a USB cable ONCE for configuration (it gets the WiFi configuration from your computer – mine uses the WiFi signal from my Remote Hub out in my workshop), then it joins your network and streams its video to dropcam.com. The camera and dropcam.com website have proven to be very reliable.

It is powered with a mini USB cable (5 volts), which is included, along with a wall plug USB power adapter.

Dropcam allows you to view the video from your camera for free on your dropcam.com account. If you want to record the video so you can go back and look at past video (e.g. for security purposes), they have inexpensive recording subscriptions.

They have a number of demo cameras set up – including a nice one looking out a window onto Monterey Bay in California. While I couldn’t find a demo camera on a farm, this gives you a nice idea of how good the picture is and what the interface looks like – very good, very easy to use.

The Dropcam is very good, but it’s far from perfect. The big advantages are:

  • Easy to set up and use
  • Small, lightweight, inexpensive
  • Transmits video AND audio – look and listen
  • IOS and Android apps for viewing cameras
  • Visible over the Internet, no port forwarding

However, it has a few very salient disadvantages:

  • Not suitable for outdoor use – indoor use only
  • No local access – you HAVE to be connected to the Internet to view the camera
  • Fixed lens – no telephoto, no wide angle, no point/tilt/zoom
  • A couple of seconds delay between the camera and the video stream

If you have a place you want to keep an eye on, Dropcam is an excellent choice. The quality of the camera and picture is comparable to my “favorite” indoor camera, the Axis M1033-W. As you can see, although the camera has to be indoors, it does a nice job showing outdoor scenes if it can be placed inside a window.

Dropcam is, potentially, a very useful tool for your home and farm.

 

 

 

New Ayrstone Product: the AyrMesh Receiver

Leave a reply

Today we’re announcing a new product in the Ayrstone AyrMesh line: the AyrMesh Receiver.

The AyrMesh Receiver is actually, of course, more than a receiver – it transmits and receives data – but it is designed as a simple, low-cost way to put one or more “wired” (Ethernet) devices onto an AyrMesh network. It is very similar to our AyrMesh Hub, but with a couple of important differences:

  1. The AyrMesh Receiver connects to the Hub’s WiFi signal, not the wireless mesh signal.
  2. The AyrMesh Receiver does not create its own WiFi access point – it is a client device only
  3. The AyrMesh Receiver uses a directional antenna for maximum range – it can be positioned up to 2 miles away from an AyrMesh Hub (optimal conditions).

Typical uses for the AyrMesh Receiver include:

  1. Using high-end IP cameras or other network devices that do not have WiFi
  2. Bringing the AyrMesh network inside of metal buildings – an AyrMesh Receiver can be placed on the outside of the building and devices inside can be connected to the LAN port of the receiver. You can even put a WiFi access point inside the building so you have WiFi indoors as well as outdoors.
  3. Connecting devices like network-enabled weather stations in more distant fields – since the AyrMesh Receiver can be up to 2 miles from your furthest Hub, you can now include areas in your network that were previously unreachable.

The AyrMesh Receiver is available now from Ayrstone – please see our website for details.

Wireless Farm Networking: what and why

Leave a reply

A few years ago, we identified a real need in the agricultural market for more robust, internet-connected farm networks. This was driven by our work in precision agriculture; what we saw was that there was a glut of usable data that could be helping growers make better (and more profitable) decisions, but that data was mostly trapped on personal computers and in-cab monitors.

As we looked at this situation, we realized there were two equally important needs which were interrelated: the first is a comprehensive platform for turning all this raw data into actionable information, and the second was a facility for collecting the data and putting it to use. But there’s a “chicken and egg” problem here: if you don’t have the data, you can’t turn it into information, but there’s no good way to collect and use the data currently.

The AyrMesh Hub

So we decided to tackle the second problem: create an “Enterprise Network” for farmers and ranchers, so they could collect data from their farm operations effortlessly and use that data to make more informed decisions. We realized, of course, that a typical network was not going to work for the farm: everything is very far apart, so laying cable (or even fiber) is generally not a workable solution. Besides, the network should ideally encompass the tractors, sprayers, and harvesters out working in the fields, so wireless is the only option. This was the impetus that gave birth to the original AyrMesh Hub.

The idea was fairly simple: take some of the ideas used in the “Roofnet” project at M.I.T. and adapt them to building a low-cost wireless mesh network for farm use. The key requirements were:

  1. Use WiFi – other, proprietary mesh networks had been tried, but they require a wireless “client” device for anything you want to put on the network. Lots of things have WiFi today – it’s an easy, familiar, open technology
  2. Design the system for a farm – provide good bandwidth to relatively few “clients” spread over a very wide area. Most WiFi devices in the market today are designed for exactly the opposite: a metropolitan mesh network, where you have many people in a very small area and high bandwidth demands.

What we have seen is that, like all technologies, there is an adoption curve. The first step is the desire to use one’s Internet connection beyond the confines of the house. Especially with the advent of smartphones and tablet computers like the iPad, the ability to have instant information and communications everywhere you go on the farm can be a reality, even if cellular data is not available everywhere on your farm.

A WiFi Camera

The second step is connecting sensors to the network to “keep an eye out” on your farm. The most popular and demanded sensor, of course, is the IP camera. The ability to bring up a view of an area of your farm, whether to see the settings on the grain dryer, keep an eye on livestock (especially in the middle of the night), or as the basis for a security system, cameras seem to have a place on every farm. But, moving forward, putting network-connected environmental sensors in livestock buildings and distant fields can bring terrific pro

A Weather Station at the edge of a field

ductivity gains. Knowing the temperature and humidity in your livestock barns can help optimize your HVAC usage, while knowing the wind and rainfall in a distant field can save a trip if it’s too windy or too wet to work.

Lots of data here…

In addition, some of the precision agriculture vendors are starting to put WiFi into their in-cab monitors, so you can access the data on those monitors over the network instead of having to move cards or USB sticks around. Being able to access your “as applied” and harvest data allows you (or your agronomist) to much more easily determine your variable rate applications as you go through the season, potentially cutting your costs and maximizing your yield.

Network-controlled relay, courtesy controlbyweb.com

The third step is farm control: being able to actually get things done on the farm over the network. Grain dryers, pumps, irrigation systems, HVAC systems, and other equipment could be controlled over the network. This means that you can potentially control your grain dryer from the bedroom, or even while you’re running errands in town, since your network is connected to the Internet.

What we learned in the 1990s and 2000s when networks were becoming ubiquitous in the corporate world is that the presence of the network creates opportunities to improve the business in unexpected ways. We don’t pretend to know what all the uses are for a wireless farm network, but we’re very excited to see what they are. We’re here at the very beginning of farm networking, and the future is limitless.

Welcome to the Ayrstone Blog!

Leave a reply

This is me, but I’ll probably never look this good again.

This is what it’s about: Ayrstone on the farm. This is Matt Hughes’s farm in IL

This is a blog about Ayrstone, our products, networking, particularly wireless networking, the internet, farm/ranch management, and whatever else we find interesting. The primary author is Bill Moffitt, President and Chief technical guy for Ayrstone Productivity.

As Ayrstone customers who have spoken to me can attest, my interests are many and varied, but they always circle back to ways to get things done better, cheaper, safer, and more effectively. I am a strong proponent of technology, but I’m not really what you might call an “enthusiast.” I think of myself more as a crash-test dummy: I want to try new things, see what the potential is, and then talk about what I find (good or bad). The nice thing about this is, I hope, I can find things that are genuinely helpful. The bad part, of course, is that you may not always agree with my assessment. But, of course, that’s what makes this interesting: I expect some lively comments and discussions about the relative merits of different approaches here.

Just so you know what to expect, I’m a “machine gun” writer: I’ll go a long time without writing anything, and then I’ll put up several posts in rapid succession.

I welcome your comments, both positive and negative. This world of networking on the farm has a lot of big, new opportunities, and I hope I can help you make the most of it.

If so, I’ll have done my job.