Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE
#2This implements a fairly common functionality that is surprisingly missing (no existing libraries or standards). The downside is that the current SDK doesn't have the stack I'd want to use (Flutter + micropython)
Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE
#3Very exciting to see this implemented into ESPhome. Will make provisioning IoT devices for end users far simpler
Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE
#4This looks interesting, hopeful it gets some adaption.
On a related note most mobile devices already support QR code for setting up a WiFi networks (iOS, Android). Works extremely well. This website has a JavaScript implementation you can take offline for generation:
Declaimer: I have no relationship with the site. I've just used it for generation after a code review and taking the site offline.
Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE
#5This is great. I needed something like this for bootstrapping headless raspberry pis. I ended up rolling my own ad hoc provisioning script, and packaging it in a custom raspbian image. This seems like a great candidate for inclusion in a Pi distro.
Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE
#6This looks interesting, hopeful it gets some adaption. On a related note most mobile devices already support QR code for setting up a WiFi networks (iOS, Android). Works extremely well. This website has a JavaScript implementation you can take offline for generation: https://qifi.org/ Declaimer: I have no relationship with the site. I've just used it for generation after a code review and taking the site offline.
The Nintendo Switch has a hilarious use case for this. When you view a screenshot or screen recording in the Switch’s album, there’s a menu option called Send to Smartphone. Press it, and a dialog comes up with a QR code. This points to a non-internet-connected Wi-Fi network that the Switch has just set up. You scan it, wait several seconds for your phone to connect to the network, and… the Switch displays a second QR code. This one is an HTTP URL pointing to a web server the Switch is now running. Scan that one, and you can finally access your screenshot through the phone browser. You have to go through this process every time you want to send media. You can’t remember the Wi-Fi network on your phone, as the password changes every time; you can’t tell the Switch to run a web server on an existing network; and you can’t ask it to show the password as text so you can easily input it into a non-phone device.
The sad thing is that, while Nintendo could have added more polish to the feature, they had no way to make the UX truly good for an average user without depending on some cloud service. The file transfer protocols with good UX are all either Internet-dependent (cloud storage), proprietary (AirDrop), slow (classic Bluetooth file transfer), or all of the above. Under those constraints, the QR codes feel a bit like a clever hack.
Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE
#7Is this similar to how Apple shares WiFi creds between nearby iPhones? I've found that quite handy more than a handful of times and have missed having it on other non-Apple devices.
Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE
#8Is this similar to how Apple shares WiFi creds between nearby iPhones? I've found that quite handy more than a handful of times and have missed having it on other non-Apple devices.
I believe that's over Handoff protocol, which combines Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE, and Wi-Fi Direct depending on the circumstances — also iirc used by AirDrop and "set up your Apple TV" and so on.
Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE
#9This looks interesting, hopeful it gets some adaption. On a related note most mobile devices already support QR code for setting up a WiFi networks (iOS, Android). Works extremely well. This website has a JavaScript implementation you can take offline for generation: https://qifi.org/ Declaimer: I have no relationship with the site. I've just used it for generation after a code review and taking the site offline.
The Nintendo Switch has a hilarious use case for this. When you view a screenshot or screen recording in the Switch’s album, there’s a menu option called Send to Smartphone. Press it, and a dialog comes up with a QR code. This points to a non-internet-connected Wi-Fi network that the Switch has just set up. You scan it, wait several seconds for your phone to connect to the network, and… the Switch displays a second Q…
Interesting. Is it using WiFi Direct or is it just a standard adhoc WiFi network? I though WiFi Direct was suppose to basically be a the open/standard transport part of Airdrop like things such that it would be seamless but frankly I have not used it enough to know.
I'm also a bit surprised QR codes can't be composed or combined. e.g have a single QR code that has a WiFi connection as the first code and then a URL code as a second. I know QR codes can increase in size to fit more data but I guess it still has to be a single string/byte array?
Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE
#10This is great. I needed something like this for bootstrapping headless raspberry pis. I ended up rolling my own ad hoc provisioning script, and packaging it in a custom raspbian image. This seems like a great candidate for inclusion in a Pi distro.
I don't if useful but there are also existing projects like https://github.com/schollz/raspberry-pi-turnkey and https://github.com/sabhiram/raspberry-wifi-config which have the Pi configure an open WiFi AP if a network has not yet been configured which then allow the user to setup their network through a simple wizard-like web interface.