Getting a WiFi dongle for EV3

[pepijndevos]

Apparently the NETGEAR WMA1100 is the only thing that works out of the box, so I'm looking for information on how to get one, or how to support other devices.

So far I found links to

• Amazon, which does not ship that item to the Netherlands.
• Pixmania, which has pretty bad reviews.
• LEGO, which sells them at a huge premium,

My understanding is that you need WiFi or a serial cable to run C programs on the EV3, which is why I want one in the first place. Preferably I'd just put binaries on the micro SD and launch them from the brick.

In theory BT should also be possible, but apparently that is broken?

aholler on irc://chat.freenonde.net#mindboards told me that you can recompile the kernel with additional modules enabled, which seems to be the case for the LejOS image. Does that mean I can just buy any dongle at a local electronics shop and use that, or is there still a limited set of supported devices?

[HaWe]

for Germany there also seem to be no shops which sell such a stick for a reasonable price.

I personally would prefer to use just a USB cable instead anyhow, just like for my NXT so far.

[gloomyandy]

If you are happy to run off an SD card you could always just use the leJOS image. That supports a wider range of dongles (though by no means all of them) and also allows you to run TCP over the standard USB cable or over Bluetooth. Note that to use this image you will need a Linux system to create the SD card. See the leJOS forum and Wiki for details.

Andy

[HaWe]

poor Windows users who will never touch a Linux PC.. :(

[inxt-generation]

I have a few Wi-Fi dongles, none of which work with the stock firmware. Before getting a special one, I tried this: http://www.amazon.com/Cisco-Linksys-USB ... B000085ZKV as it was just laying around as well. Wether or not I can use it in place of the dongle I'm not certain, but it does give the EV3 a network connection and I can ping it from my desktop.

[pepijndevos]

The LejOS image would be a start. Maybe Clojure or Mirah work with it. On the other hand, I'd still need to find an EDIMAX dongle.

The EV3 has been tested using the NetGear WNA1100 and EDIMAX EW-7811Un adaptors, but others may work if they use the same chipsets.

Using the same chipset... It's not like they put that on the label. "Now! Using DEADBEEF31415 chipset!!!"

The menuconfig has quite a long list under Device Drivers > Network Device Support > Wireless LAN or USB Network Adapters, but like I said, no idea which dongles use any of these.

It seams the least hassle would be to take a gamble with Pixmania or creating a serial cable: http://botbench.com/blog/2013/08/15/ev3 ... ole-cable/

Or wait for an enhanced firmare to come out which lets you load compiled code from the SD card... or LEGO to update the firmware with more drivers...

[HaWe]

why can't we just plug a USB cable?
That would be the easiest way to connect to any PC.

[pepijndevos]

The trouble is that with the NXT, most languages, like NXC compiled to bytecode for the NXT VM. You could do the same for the EV3, but what I love about the EV3 is that you can run native code on it. The downside is that the VM, and thus the stock interface will not execute native code.

I believe BrickCC can already download files via USB, but I don't believe the interface will let you run them.

[HaWe]

I don't understand why a Wifi dongle will work for the C platform but the simple USB cable will not work for this while it will work for the VM though -
but I suspect if a simple USB cable will not work for C programming then it will be extremely cumbersome for spreading this alternative platform.

(e.g., I have no Wifi at all and would have first to buy a Wifi router, no idea how that will work or how it has to be configured with my DSL LAN router).

[pepijndevos]

There will eventually be a way to run C programs from the brick I suppose... Someone needs to hack the firmware to support this.

The reason a WiFi dongle works is that you can log in to the underlying Linux system and execute commands directly.

I think I read the serial cable should serve the same purpose, but later read that it doesn't work after the VM has booted. So can I use a serial cable to run programs yes or no?