Using an 802.11g wifi transport



  • I have an Odroid C2 that I want to use as the controller AND gateway for an 802.11g or 802.11n network of sensors. In the future, I want to use an 802.11s mesh network, but I figure I should start with a more familiar configuration, first, especially because my initial tests sensors will be ESP8266, ESP32, and Raspberry Pi Zero W devices. I am not interested in the rf24, rs485, rfm95, or rfm69 transports, especially since all of my sensors have 802.11g built-in, and I only have to add a USB adapter to my Odroid to get 802.11g wifi on it.

    I do not intend to route traffic from the 802.11g network to the ethernet network on the Odroid. The ethernet connection is reserved for accessing the web interface of the controller. For security, I want to keep the two networks separate.

    My problem is that I am still learning the terminology used in the documentation and discussions about MySensors and MyController, and I can't find any discussions concerning configurations such as what I want to accomplish. Has anyone done what I want to do? It may be that I don't understand the structures of MySensors and MyController and how they interact.

    I'll be grateful for a link or for any suggestions anyone can offer.



  • If you plan using ESP chips or Raspberry as your sensors node, I think better way is ESPeasy or similar sw for ESPs.



  • Thank your for your reply, kimot.

    Yes, I've been looking at that, having read some discussions here in the forum. What I'm having problems understanding is how to set up MySensors and MyController on the Odroid. While I can connect the two using the LAN configuration, I don't understand how to configure the MySensors gateway for 802.11g transport. (While I know that wired connections are better from the standpoint of reliability, I'm not especially concerned about that right now.)


  • Mod

    @eveningstariot if you by transport mean MySensors transport, the reason you can’t find anything is simple: MySensors does not support any wifi (801.11a/b/n/ac etc) transport method.



  • Yes, I noted that. But what I'm hoping for is that, since MySensors does allow the use of TCP/IP and MQTT, there might be a way to implement the most widely used short-range wireless technology in the world, especially since it's built in to so many devices that can serve as the basis for an almost unimaginable range of sensors without the necessity of using add-on boards.


  • Mod

    @eveningstariot If you have wifi, the MySensors library adds almost nothing to your project. Connect your wifi devices directly to your controller, using mqtt or whatever protocols your controller supports.

    MySensors is designed to handle radio communication and routing. wifi/IP already has radio communication and routing built-in.



  • What you need is an MQTT broker and the PubSubClient library. MySensors is not useful to you.



  • @mfalkvidd Thank you. I was beginning to wonder if that was the case. I'd gotten some advice that I needed MySensors for some experiments with MyController, but it does look like I can do everything I need to do with an MQTT gateway.


  • Hardware Contributor

    @mfalkvidd said in Using an 802.11g wifi transport:

    @eveningstariot If you have wifi, the MySensors library adds almost nothing to your project. Connect your wifi devices directly to your controller, using mqtt or whatever protocols your controller supports.

    MySensors was the starting point for me to build my own parts for home automation. It is more than a library:

    • active community
    • inspiration for new projects
    • an API which I more or less transferred to a generic API for other sensors (zWave, homematic...)

    I have reduced the usage of radio based sensors (only one active sensor left) and sometimes I get blue, that mysensors has no real solution for my WiFi-based sensors. The solution with one gateway per WiFi node is not appealing. (No auto discovery, many endpoints to one controller...) I switched to MQTT (without mysensors) and direct REST-API calls. But it feels a little bit clumsy. 😞


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