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Simultaneous AP and Client Mode Wi-Fi on Raspberry Pi Zero W

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Re: Simultaneous AP and Client Mode Wi-Fi on Raspberry Pi Zero W

#52
I've been using a similar solution, but I had quite some problems using AP and client mode at the same time. The WiFi chip inside the RPi Zero W (BCM43430) only supports AP and client mode on the same channel. If you setup an AP first, then connect to a client network, hostapd will update the channel of the AP, but clients will notice a disconnect. There are also issues with the firmware blob (see https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/1403) in AP mode that haven't been solved yet.

Re: Simultaneous AP and Client Mode Wi-Fi on Raspberry Pi Zero W

#55
post #29

I've looked at the links posted here and the repo but I fail to find what is the use case for this?

I use a Pi Zero W + extra USB wifi to share modern wifi with my legacy PowerBook 2400c + 802.11b PCMCIA card.

This setup could let me do it without the USB wifi hanging off the USB OTG adaptor.

* This is not secure but it’s fine for my vintage computing hobby

Re: Simultaneous AP and Client Mode Wi-Fi on Raspberry Pi Zero W

#56
post #49

Would this be good for something like connecting the Pi to a VPN for say Canada, then broadcasting an SSID for it. Then connecting a Fire TV Stick or Chromecast to this AP, and tricking it into letting you stream Canadian Netflix or DAZN etc.

I was interested in setting up something similar (as a novelty) to cheaply bypass an untrusted network.

Untrusted Wifi > RasPi Client > OpenVPN > AP

How would you go about routing the VPN device between client and AP?

Re: Simultaneous AP and Client Mode Wi-Fi on Raspberry Pi Zero W

#57
Just curious, but I was trying to help someone with a Raspberry Pi Zero W wifi issue the other day and had trouble finding sny info about the wireless chipset used. I couldn't find it listen anywhere on the site, or several tech review sites, only extremely useless information on the 802.11 versions support. If it recall correctly, it didn't even show up in the schematica. Luckily wikipedia had the name of the chipset used, but I don't get it. Why does their official documentation seem to be so secretive?

Re: Simultaneous AP and Client Mode Wi-Fi on Raspberry Pi Zero W

#58
post #49

Would this be good for something like connecting the Pi to a VPN for say Canada, then broadcasting an SSID for it. Then connecting a Fire TV Stick or Chromecast to this AP, and tricking it into letting you stream Canadian Netflix or DAZN etc.

Maybe it was just an arbitrary example, but really, there's no reason to want Canadian Netflix. We only get about half the stuff the US does.

Also, we have the same "content can't be offered here by Netflix because the local IP license has been bought out by a different owner" problem that the US and many other places does; but in Canada's case, most of those local IP owners are conservative dinosaur media companies, who either haven't managed, or haven't bothered, to set up their own alternative streaming services yet. They just... hold the licenses, doing nothing with them. Hoarding them, like a dragon. So there are many shows you just can't stream in Canada at all, no matter who you're willing to pay.

Re: Simultaneous AP and Client Mode Wi-Fi on Raspberry Pi Zero W

#59
post #32
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be used as a range extender, though not a very good one. Probably a better use case would be connecting older devices like the Nintendo DS that don't support WPA2 to your network without forcing all of your other devices onto WEP.

Why not a very good one? In terms of range (with the PCB antenna)? Or does the Pi firmware not support some modern 802.11 standards or what?

Well 2 things really. Yeah the hardware is a bit garbage as it only goes up to 802.11n only on 2.4 GHz and it's also a 1x1 with a poor antenna. The big thing though is it requires you use the same channel which is disastrous for repeater performance.

Ideally you'd have 802.11ac/ax with 2 separate PHYs each with 4x4 (even if the clients are 1x1 or 2x2 the additional beamforming helps) set to two separate channels.

That's not to say it won't function well enough in a pinch but I wouldn't seek this out as a permanent answer if I were buying new.

Re: Simultaneous AP and Client Mode Wi-Fi on Raspberry Pi Zero W

#60

Just curious, but I was trying to help someone with a Raspberry Pi Zero W wifi issue the other day and had trouble finding sny info about the wireless chipset used. I couldn't find it listen anywhere on the site, or several tech review sites, only extremely useless information on the 802.11 versions support. If it recall correctly, it didn't even show up in the schematica. Luckily wikipedia had the name of the chipse…

It's not secretive, it's just that most people are not very interested in the exact type of Wi-Fi chipset used.

You can see the chipset name (BCM43430) on dmesg:

  $ dmesg | grep brcmfmac
  [   26.488164] brcmfmac: F1 signature read @0x18000000=0x1541a9a6
  [   26.512759] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio for chip BCM43430/1
  [   26.513315] usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
  [   26.539406] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43430-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-w.txt
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