Wi-Fi solutions on the go in 2021
Wi-Fi solutions on the go in 2021
This is more a hypothetical discussion than a practical thing at the moment but I thought I'd toss this out there. The Steam Deck is coming in 2022 with a lot of interest and there are other small handheld options already out there and heck, laptops exist as well obviously. Let's see you and some friends are traveling, maybe you're in a train, a ferry, maybe you're killing hours in an airport lounge, and you want to play games together. The wifi is trash or just nonexistent, but you're playing games that support good old fashioned LAN support. In 2021, what are the viable ways to get multiple wireless devices talking to each other without a central router to connect to? Is ad hoc even still a function in Windows 10? With the right chipsets, is it now 'easy' (end user wise) to kick once device into access point mode while the others connect to it? The last time I used ad hoc was on a Windows XP machine with a Celeron M CPU, before 'wifi' was nearly as ubiquitous as it was today and it's a topic I've not seen looked at in a long time.
Using your laptop or smartphone to open a hotspot, you linked to that network. I once connected my Windows 10 notebook to a stable Wi-Fi after recording something in our community. This allowed smaller devices to join my notebook’s connection, which had a stronger local signal than the others. I didn’t test communication between those devices, but they all managed to reach the notebook and access the local Wi-Fi through it.
It's surprising to learn that 'Mobile Hotspot' is now a built-in feature in Windows 10. I've used it on phones for a long time, but I didn't realize it was available as a convenient option in the operating system.
My Windows 10 Nokia Lumia 830 still works well for me, even though it’s tough to handle. But I can only use eight devices at once, and it uses up the battery faster. A power bank is recommended when using a phone in this way.
was i truly the sole participant moving a router around the campus for pop-up LAN gatherings in the hallway? (probably not, since we had eight people) but yes, there are numerous ad-hoc setups, particularly in a '2.4GHz noisy' setting with just a small network switch powered by batteries and plenty of cables works well if you're going to stay for an hour or two. and if wireless is the choice, nearly any device equipped with a wireless chipset can act as an access point nowadays. if you prefer not to rely on your own device, it's quite easy to charge a router or even craft your own setup using a raspberry pi inside a case. (i emphasize an enclosure because public transport avoids exposed circuit boards...)
I wouldn't describe it as 'Solid'. I appreciate the concept of one player's device acting as the AP. I hadn't noticed until now that Windows 10 includes a built-in Mobile Hot Spot feature. I plan to try it with a few laptops to check if communication between LAN clients is possible, not just internet access, and see how it performs even without internet through another port.
You could simply use a traditional ad-hoc setup between devices. Make sure everyone shares identical settings (I’d likely send an XML file) and assign IPs automatically to the 169.254/16 range. Everything should function without extra complexity.