Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE

improv-wifi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 26 posts

Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE

#11

Post by tokamak-teapot »

comex wrote: post #6
Someone1234 wrote: post #4

This 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…

Amazing. I found the easiest way was to set up a Twitter account and have it post there, then log in to Twitter to download!

Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE

#12

Post by IshKebab »

I think there are two issues with trying to get adoption for this in mainstream products:

1. Loads of products that have this problem use a wifi hotspot to do that transfer instead. Yes it sucks, but they don't want to pay for BLE that is only used for the connection process.

2. Both Apple and Android already have wifi-based connection processes built into the OS that have the enormous advantage of being able to fiddle with your WiFi settings and access your WiFi passwords. If you use those systems the connection process is actually reasonably slick (and if you don't it is the most awful thing ever).

Good luck though. I worked on the WiFi connection process for a product and the whole thing is a complete mess. Any improvement is a good thing.

Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE

#14

Post by crooked-v »

comex wrote: post #6
Someone1234 wrote: post #4

This 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…

You may find Snapdrop interesting: https://github.com/RobinLinus/snapdrop

It uses WebRTC for local file transfers, though as of yet it still needs a server to shuffle connection messages between peers on the same IP.

Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE

#16

Post by looperhacks »

denton-scratch wrote: post #13

"Your browser is not supported" Only works with Edge and Chrome? Firefox user here, what have they done that makes it incompatible with web standards?

> Improv provisioning also works in browsers that support WebBluetooth

Firefox and Safari (and quite many other browsers) do not support WebBluetooth

Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE

#17

Post by mschuster91 »

comex wrote: post #6
Someone1234 wrote: post #4

This 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…

> 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.

There would have been other alternatives to make life easier for people:

1) the Switch is gonna be connected to your LAN anyways via WiFi - so have it open up a SMB server that you can connect to.

2) Use the Nintendo Switch companion app and broadcast packets to allow local discovery

3) Expose the content of the internal storage and/or SD card via USB MTP

4) Use the NFC transmitter in the right JoyCon that is normally used to read Amiibos to transmit the WiFi credentials like Sony does this in some of the Alpha cameras.

The problem is, we're talking about Nintendo here who require you put the Switch into the DMZ with full (!) firewall exposure to play Animal Crossing because apparently they have never ever heard about STUN/TURN or WebRTC. Good luck if you have two people in one household who both want to play Animal Crossing as the host with someone else!

I, seriously, have NO FUCKING IDEA how a company can be at the same time so good at implementing software and so fucking bad at the basics. Jesus. They have all the hardware they need but apparently are unable to make use of it.

(Side note: Anyone here who has tried fuzzing the network stack that Animal Crossing uses? Could be a nice vector for remote code execution, especially since the way AC operates network play requires it be wide open to the Internet)

Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE

#18

Post by tinus_hn »

mschuster91 wrote: post #17
comex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. There would have been other alternatives to make life easier for people: 1) the Switch is gonna be connected to your LAN anyways via WiFi - so have it open up a SMB server t…

Nintendo is not good at implementing software, it is great at game design but its software really is a big mess full of bizarre bugs.

Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE

#19

Post by summm »

This is a testament to the abject failure that is the wifi protocol and its popular implementations. Everything that needs to be done here would be possible with some simple wifi-based broadcast (like "ad-hoc" back in the days?) and the possibility for a phone to connect to multiple wifi networks at once. Not sure if this is for political or economic reasons, or just incompetence.

Re: Improv Wi-Fi: Open Standard for Setting Up Wi-Fi via Bluetooth LE

#20

Post by MayeulC »

summm wrote: post #19

This is a testament to the abject failure that is the wifi protocol and its popular implementations. Everything that needs to be done here would be possible with some simple wifi-based broadcast (like "ad-hoc" back in the days?) and the possibility for a phone to connect to multiple wifi networks at once. Not sure if this is for political or economic reasons, or just incompetence.

WiFi Aware "NAN" and WiFi Direct "P2P" should help quite a bit. NAN specifically allows local broadcasts.

One thing that's a bit sad is that better authentication (PEAP) isn't widely supoirted or easy to set up.

Unfortunately, I've found it very hard to toy with Wi-Fi. I'm not sure older chipsets can implement these features.

Post reply on HN