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Wireless Networking Hardware

The NoCat Wireless Access Point/Night Light 151

Posted by timothy from the natural-progression dept.
cascadefx writes "O'Reilly's Hacks page has a really great article about a wireless access point that was on display at the recent Emerging Technology Conference. The folks at NoCat.net rigged up a Siemens Speedstream series access point with a low power ultraviolet light to create a wireless lightbulb. Just screw it in place and combine powerline ethernet with a wireless network... and a light, to create a wireless lightbulb. Ubiquitous networking, here we come."
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The NoCat Wireless Access Point/Night Light More

The NoCat Wireless Access Point/Night Light

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  • I was hoping that it was a way to wirelessly power a lightbulb. Oh well, pretty cool design anyway. :)
    • You should check out Tesla's work. He was broadcasting electricity ages ago. You can build the same getup at home for a few hundred bucks and chemo treatments from the cancer which will most likely ensue.

      • Re:Wireless lightbulb? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by guacamolefoo ( 577448 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @02:18PM (#5937909) Homepage Journal
        You should check out Tesla's work. He was broadcasting electricity ages ago. You can build the same getup at home for a few hundred bucks and chemo treatments from the cancer which will most likely ensue.

        I saw a news story in Time or Newsweek back in 93 or 94 that showed a guy standing beneath some high voltage lines holding a lightbulb. The bulb was glowing. It was a story on the perceived harms that allegedly resulted from EMFs near high-voltage lines.

        A girlfriend of mine (an engineer) from college subsequently did an interesting project in combination with a science writing/journalism class that looked at the public's perception of dangers resulting from EMFs (aside from the obvious) compared to the actual risks disclosed in the medical literature of the time. The disparity between the proven risks and the perceived risks among those surveyed (even those from an engineering college of a major university) was stunning.

        In any case, I often wondered if the photo from Time or Newsweek was faked. Even today, I still can't get the idea through my head that significant exposure to EMFs can be anything but bad for you. I'm pretty sure it isn't good for you, but I can't really say why I think that other than ignorant fear of something so powerful.

        FWIW, it seems that broadcasting electric would be incredibly wasteful under almost all circumstances, though. Besides, anytime I see references to Tesla, I start to think that black helicopters and aliens can't be far behind. Not a fair bias, perhaps, but it is nevertheless one from which I suffer.

        • Re:Wireless lightbulb? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by TexVex ( 669445 )
          In any case, I often wondered if the photo from Time or Newsweek was faked.


          You can light up a fluorescent bulb in your hand with a plasma globe [madsci.org].

        • Re:Wireless lightbulb? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by LamerX ( 164968 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @03:33PM (#5938536) Journal
          I live very close to the really big, high tension power lines. I don't fear them at all, but someone told me one day about holding a flourescent light up under them at night and watch it light up. I thought, yeah right! So one night, I went out with a big long tube light, and sure as hell, it lit up. It was so blowing my mind. It doesn't light up really bright, but it lights up none the less. I haven't tried it with an incandescent bulb, but I don't think they are supposed to work.
          • I'm trying it tonight!

          • Re:Wireless lightbulb? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @05:15PM (#5939645) Homepage Journal
            Watch out - you might get sued for stealing power.

            Some people run lots of wire in their backyards and induce a current from the high tension wire's field to provide 'supplemental' power to their houses.

            The power company says it's stealing, on the basis that they're only creating a magnetic field, not providing you with current, so when you harvest the current, you're creating a loss for them.

            While that may be true, some point out that they're allowed to induce a current in you, your kids, and your dog but you're not allowed to induce a current in anything you own, a seemingly skewed state of affairs.
        • There is actually an effort [207.162.96.17] underway to promote the use of the microwave wavelength to transmit energy from a large solar cell array in space to a base station on earth.

          With the solar array in space it is not ubstructed by clouds or earth. The microwave energy can be focused on just the base station to such an extend that it is not a health concern (below approved levels) to surrounding areas.

          The solar array in space could be quite large. I heard someone suggesting 15 miles in length.

          Some current

          • Re:Wireless lightbulb? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by benjamindees ( 441808 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @04:31PM (#5939162) Homepage
            I've always thought that an orbital mirror would be a better idea. Instead of flying heavy solar panels into space and beaming microwaves down, fly aluminum foil into space and just beam down sunlight. It could be concentrated into a small area and used to heat water or scald unsuspecting passers-by or whatever.

            There's going to be heat pollution either way, but I have a feeling there'd be less with a mirror. Plus, the collector device on Earth could be upgraded as technologies improve.

            • Let's see, you take a collector, put it between the earth and the sun, where it stops light that would hit the Earth anyway, and then convert the light to a different form, thus losing something in the conversion, and beam that light down to earth. IANAP (I am not a physicist), so can anyone easily debunk what I think is a common-sense version of events?
              • Let's see, you take a collector, put it between the earth and the sun, where it stops light that would hit the Earth anyway,

                Wasn't this already tried by Montgomery Burns?

                GF.
              • Put your collector in an orbit other than the difficult orbit which always places it between the Earth and the Sun. Then the collector's shadow is not always on Earth. The obvious solution is to orbit along the terminator's path, so the collector is always next to the Earth (relative to the Sun) rather than in front or in back. Or put the collector further from Earth, and it then is hard to eclipse Earth. Or put it in geosynch orbit, where it is tilted relative to the Earth's orbit and only might eclips
          • Alright, I've got to say it.

            Didn't they have this in Sim City 2000?

            Remember what happened if disasters were on, and the microwave beam missed?
            • Yes, but they aren't focusing the beam anywhere as tight as it is portrayed in Sim City. In fact I remember one estimate was something like residents in the area are exposed to radiation (albeit a different type) somewhere in the equivalent of what a Dental technician sees in a year. Not nearly as dramatic as Sim City would make it out to be.
        • "Besides, anytime I see references to Tesla, I start to think that black helicopters and aliens can't be far behind. Not a fair bias, perhaps, but it is nevertheless one from which I suffer."

          Telsa died broke but invented AC power and the gadgets to make it work. AC power tavels much farther with less energy loss than DC, it can also do more useful work with less material investment in equipment.

          Tesla wasn't as viscious a showman as Edison. Edison fried small animals to prove AC was dangerous.

          Tesla merely
          • You make a legitimate point. Props to Tesla for the things he did do -- in the US, AC transmission was huge beyond belief because of the distances needed to be traversed between generation and use points. Adoption of electrical power would have been stunted without it, and he made it possible faster. That had enormous and positive impact on the economy and the quality of life of millions of people.

            I was indeed referring to "All the other hoopla" that you referred to.

            GF.

      • Re:Wireless lightbulb? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Suidae ( 162977 )
        You should check out Tesla's work. He was broadcasting electricity ages ago

        Pratical Note: faraday shield for the computer will be required.

        Technical Note: Tesla wanted to transmit power wirelessly by conduction, possibly using the planet's atmosphere as a giant resonant cavity running around 8Hz. While Tesla was quite a genious, this probably would not have worked very well, and if it had worked, the effect on the environment would probably not have been good. Not to mention the economic issues associa
      • It's really quite simple physics, really. A current flowing down a wire will create an electric field. The direction of the field is circular (around the wire), and the magnitude (strength) goes down as you get farther away from the wire.

        At any given point, the field creates an electrical "potential", as it has the potential to move a charged particle (an electron). The difference in potential (measured in volts) between two points in space cause electrons to want to move to a place of lower potential, so

    • Re:Wireless lightbulb? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ?wireless lightbulb? -- it's called a flashlight. maybe you and jeff bezos can get a patent for it.
    • Tesla did that already. It EATS power and lit a string of bulbs 10 miles away.

      Now a low power, generally recognized as safe, fat free, low cal, microwave trasmitter that powers tiny/micro/nano net devices over a broad area... ...Priceless.

  • DAMNIT!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Neck_of_the_Woods ( 305788 ) * on Monday May 12, 2003 @01:49PM (#5937728) Journal

    How many times do I have to tell you, turn off the network when you leave the room!

  • The Sun. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Schezar ( 249629 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @01:50PM (#5937734) Homepage Journal
    "...a low power ultraviolet light..."

    Now maybe us pasty-white geeks can get a decent tan!
    • Nowhere in the article does it mention that it was an ultraviolet light. In fact, from the pictures, it isn't. (Unless you want to quibble that a florescent light generates UV internally which is converted to visible light by the coating inside the tube.)

    • Re:The Sun. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Moonshadow ( 84117 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @07:45PM (#5940862)
      So you would be able to tell how big someone's pipe is by the tone of their tan?

      "Yeah, I just got myself a 10Megalumen cable modem. Give me 3 months and I'll be picking up chicks like nobody's business!"

  • I already have a wireless lightbulb... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sssmashy ( 612587 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @01:51PM (#5937741)
    ... but over here, we just call it a flashlight.

  • Obvious, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) * on Monday May 12, 2003 @01:57PM (#5937774) Homepage Journal
    This might seem obvious, but since the network would only work when the lights are on, this would be something of a problem for a very large number of applications where this might actually be of use; for instance, in outdoor spaces where the lights are off during daylight hours.

    A workaround, I suppose would be to have a relay in the unit capable of switching the light on and off via network control, X10, or similar while the actual circut remains operational. That would be a likely needed feature on any commercial unit.

    ~GoRK
    • A workaround, I suppose would be to have a relay in the unit capable of switching the light on and off via network control, X10, or similar while the actual circut remains operational. That would be a likely needed feature on any commercial unit.

      Or some kind of day light sensor that switchs on and off the light while the AP keeps powered all the time...
      • Yeah, I thought about that right after I had posted.. Problem is most lights that need one of these "electric eyes" already have it built into the fixture -- but nothing a little electrical tape won't fix!
    • you mean i'd have to look at pr0n with the light on? yikes.

    • Re:Obvious, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jerkychew ( 80913 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @02:23PM (#5937944) Homepage

      Why not wire it like your car stereo? When you shut your car off, power still goes to the stereo via a separate feed, so you don't lose your preset stations.

      You could have a constant power line going to the network guts of the enclosure, while the power controlled by the on/off switch was wired to the light side of things. Hit the switch and the light turns off, but the network keeps on chugging.

      Granted, it would require you to do some rewiring of your existing light infrastructure, but half the fun is getting there!

      • Granted, it would require you to do some rewiring of your existing light infrastructure, but half the fun is getting there!

        Then what's the point of putting it in a light bulb in the first place?!

      • When you shut your car off, power still goes to the stereo via a separate feed, so you don't lose your preset stations.

        Most cars I've owned killed power to the car stereo when the car was switched off and the key removed.

        Ever hear of non-volatile memory?

        • Try taking the battery out of your car. Opps you loose your presets (well most car stereos anyways)

        • Re:Obvious, but... (Score:2, Informative)

          by jerkychew ( 80913 )

          Sorry, but you're mistaken.

          Modern car stereos have two power leads going to them. One lead goes directly (ok, maybe through a fuse) to the battery, while the other goes to the ignition switch. Yes, when you shut your car off, the stereo powers off, but this doesn't mean that all power has been cut. The stereo keeps a constant power feed on the car's battery so it will remember the presets, as well as keep the clock up to date.

          Yes, I've heard of NVRAM. But NVRAM still needs some kind of power to keep it

          • You're correct, but I think most car stereos these days also have a built-in battery back up. I say this because of my cars recently had their batteries disconnected for at least several hours (up to a day or so), and neither one lost any of my presets. One is a factory stereo with a tape deck and CD changer attached, the other is an aftermarket piece of junk in dash CD player.

            --RJ

  • Sounds like a Ricochet node (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @02:00PM (#5937797) Homepage
    Ricochet nodes [ricochet.com] are very similar, except that they plug into street light photocell connectors.

    • They self-organize and pass the packets to the one machine with a wormhole into the real Internet. Most are just fancy, router/repeaters.

      Of course the wormhole into the Internet is important if you want to actually download important things like blog rambles or pr0n.

  • Not a wireless lightbulb at all... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sleadlay ( 230271 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @02:06PM (#5937834)
    It's an accesspoint that's hardwired into a lamp base alongside a fluorescent (not UV) lamp bulb.

    Receives electricity plus ethernet data from the existing lighting circuit.

    Nothing new here... carry on.

  • Great. More broadband noise (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12, 2003 @02:07PM (#5937846)
    Everybody who thinks that powerlines are a great way to run ethernet through your house forget that all of the wire is unshielded thereby creating a large antenna. This typically results in static noise on frequencies up to 80Mhz. I also wonder how hard it would be to just listen to the
    network and attach to it. I am still amazed that
    the FCC lets any of this trash through. If you
    are not convinced go here:
    http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/

    And no this does not just affect amateur radio.
    Ever thought about radio astronomy
    http://www.qsl.net/jh5esm/PLC/isplc2003 /isplc2003a 7-4.pdf

    • Re: In-house PLC noise (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Don't confuse in-house PLC with distribution line (eg. from the power company) PLC.

      From the same article:

      "To date, with hundreds of thousands HomePlug systems sold, ARRL does not have any complaints of interference."

      The ARRL is worried about PG&E selling broadband via this technology, not your average low-end linksys or siemens user.
    • The FCC has been asleep on the job for over ten years. In addition to interference issues they've been asleep at the switch for HDTV and corporate ownership of radio and television.

    • Re:Great. More broadband noise (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @04:02PM (#5938865) Journal
      Everybody who thinks that powerlines are a great way to run ethernet through your house forget that all of the wire is unshielded thereby creating a large antenna. This typically results in static noise on frequencies up to 80Mhz.

      And that's NOTHING compared to the noise generated on the wiring by connected non-communication appliances.

      - Motors. (Especially brush-type, such as vacuum cleaners or hair driers.)
      - Switching-type light dimmers.
      - Arc lights (fluorescent, "neon" gas discharge tubes, vapor-capsule, etc.)
      - Welders.
      - Switching-regulators in electronic appliances.
      - DIODES in power supplies.
      - ANY load turning on or off.

      Heck: Even an incandescent bulb produces broad-spectrum audio-through-radio interference on the line - though nothing like what a defective bulb produces as it flickers. (And an old carbon-filiment lamp in a closet has been known to knock out radio reception for much of a city block.)

      Be prepared for a LOT of packet corruption - meaning a lot of packet loss plus enough that get past all the redundancy checks to corrupt the actual traffic - if you ever attempt to use a power line for network traffic.

  • Pimp (Score:1, Interesting)

    by haz-mat ( 8531 )
    That's about the coolest thing since sliced bread, or at least O'Reilly books... The lead in made it sound like something out of Tesla's imagination, wireless power sources and what not, but it's very cool anyway. What sort of range could you get on a device like that, ie how many would it take to fill a conference hall or large resteraunt?
    • Actually, since you mention it, most of the tech that's inside was developed by Tesla. AC power (induction motor), florescent light, and wireless communication are all courtesy of Mr. Tesla. I find it amusing it all fits inside a form factor attributed to Edison. If you don't find this even remotely silly (pun intended. yes, I know I'm sick;) you need to stop reading slashdot for a minute and hit google for a refresher course on geek history.
      • hahaha that's quite funny. It is somewhat bitterly ironic that two men, who loathed eachother somewhat bitterly and whose rivalry drove one of them (Edison) to electricute dogs to show that the others (Tesla's) type of power (AC) was 'unsafe', have their brilliance combined and modified to now allow such wonderful things as ubiquetous wireless access.
        • Not only did he electrocute dogs and other small animals, he also electrocuted larger animals such as horses and the largest of all land creatures elephants.

          http://www.roadsideamerica.com/pet/topsy.html

          "Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." -Edison

  • Why I think powerline will not take off (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gricholson75 ( 563000 ) * on Monday May 12, 2003 @02:12PM (#5937874) Homepage
    I don't think powerline will take off. Here's why.

    1)Price. I can get a wireless network of comperable or better speed cheaper. The powerline adapters are $80 and only do 14Mbps.

    2)Late to market. Although they were promissed for years they just recently got good speeds (>1Mbps). I own an older home, I was considering this tech as an alternative to pulling wire( a huge pain in my house). But, 802.11b got to a resonable price to performance ratio first.

    The only advantage I see to powerline is covering long distances in large buildings with no existing networking cabling. Does anyone else see a reason this tech would take off?
    • Actually I just picked up two of the Ethernet-to-Powerline adapters off of buy.com for $40/each and free shipping (Thank You Froogle!).

      They also have a bundle One 802.11b-to-Powerline and One Ethernet-to-Powerline for $75.

      I already have wireless, but this is cheaper than buying a new NIC+PCI adapter for my linux box (the SMC one I have gets terrible connections) and it gives me wired for my Playstation2 as a bonus.

  • Nice idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by onthefenceman ( 640213 ) <szoepf@nOspAM.hotmail.com> on Monday May 12, 2003 @02:14PM (#5937887)
    Imagine when you tell your girlfriend that you want to leave the lights on when you get down to business - she'll think it's kinky and you get to leave the webcam connected!

  • a better solution... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @02:15PM (#5937892) Homepage
    would be to design a 802.11 repeater. A Accesspoint that simply relay's all traffic it recieves to the other accesspoint and the same in reverse.. this would make setting the whole thing up easier. 1 accesspoint and then 4 repeaters spread out around the first makes a nice coverage map for a large area.

    • and call it a mesh network. then put up a website and make APs that will attach to the mesh - and sell them

      call it Http://www.locustworld.com

    • a better solution... would be to design a 802.11 repeater. A Accesspoint that simply relay's all traffic it recieves to the other accesspoint and the same in reverse.. this would make setting the whole thing up easier. 1 accesspoint and then 4 repeaters spread out around the first makes a nice coverage map for a large area.

      802.11b repeater? Sure. Very simple. 2 access points + crossover cable. Make sure to set the APs to different (compatible) channels, and have fun.

  • Because of the cable and phone monopolies we can't get shit done.

    Fiber to the home is too expensive.

    Why not dishes from our houses to a main receiving dish. Much like satellite setups. Don't understand why this is taking so long.

    • Here in the UK, a company called Tele2 (http://www.libertybroadband.co.uk/) provide satellite-based internet access. We use them at my office, as we have a large mill building, not quite close enough to a BT exchange to get ADSL.

      We get 2Mbps synchronous access, with no contention from other customers, since each site gets their own satellite (and hence node).

      I'd guess there must be someone offering something similar where you are?
    • Sprint Broadband had this years ago (they bought out a company called SpeedChoice that started it). They operated in a couple of markets - Phoenix and Denver I think - and apparently it wasn't successful enough to continue the service.

      Wireless microwave works pretty well if you have line-of-sight to the tower, which is not that hard in mostly-flat areas. The hard part is making it commercially viable.
      • Wireless microwave works pretty well if you have line-of-sight to the tower, which is not that hard in mostly-flat areas.

        Or hilly/mountainous ones - if you put the tower on a high point. Only misses a few local "holes" - at which point you can add a fill-in relay on a local high point.

        Where it falls down is places that are both rugged and sparse. Like the Sierras for example. But wired gets 'way expensive there, too.

        What REALLY kills it is competition from companies with the infrastructure already in
        • Wireless microwave works pretty well if you have line-of-sight to the tower, which is not that hard in mostly-flat areas.

          Or hilly/mountainous ones - if you put the tower on a high point. Only misses a few local "holes" - at which point you can add a fill-in relay on a local high point.

          Yeah, well, there's microwave internet where I live, but nearly everyone I know lives in one of those "holes" because it's so hilly!
    • That's what my college uses to get us internet access in the apartments. They have a huge tower right on top of a dual T3 connection that uses a high-bandwidth wireless link to feed all of the buildings. It really works quite well. All of the on-campus apartments have 802.11b access that we pay for with our rent.

      My only beef is that their packetshaper keeps cutting me off the network. One second, I have 60% signal strength and the next, it drops to 0. It hovers at 0 just long enough to disconnect me f

  • really great? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    it's a couple pieces of off-the-shelf hardware doing what they were designed to do. what's 'really great' about the article? there are no hacks involved in using hardware for its designed purpose.
    • OK, I'll bite... - It's just plain silly. If you don't see that than you're bitter and ignorant. - It gets the signal where it needs to be - It gets the gear out of the way of sticky fingers - It gets the gear out of the way so as not to clutter things up - It saves you from having to pull in another line - It makes it easy to add access where needed - You can hack what ever you want onto the end of it... Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar -Freud

  • Wire (Score:2, Insightful)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 )
    Pulling wire is the most fulfilling home improvement project you can undertake.

    When you realize you can have gigabit capability in any room in the house, even the never-used bathroom in the addition, let me tell you, it's a great feeling.

    Of course I have gigabit capability, but not enough bananas for a 32 ports of gigabit switching goodness on my rack. But even my 10mbit/100mbit hybrid of discarded switches from the office beats the unreliable 802.11 bulldink.

    WAP, Shmap.

    Wires are where it's at. [belkin.com]

    • Re:Wire (Score:2)

      by tgd ( 2822 )
      Pulling wire is the most fulfilling home improvement project you can undertank until you discover there are two sandwiched 2x12's serving as headers between the floors of your condo, making it right on the edge of impossible to drill through them.

      I gave up and bought WEP11's.
    • Wire is good
      Fiber is better if you have piles of cash or a large assortment of cast off cards from clients
      Wireless is great if it's a laptop or just realy realy hard to get to and dosent need speed.

      My own house I have a combination of all three fiber as a backbone between the 2 primary switches in the attic and basement. Cat5 running 100bt to every room via punch downs. And a couple AP's on there own subnet that I run a VPN over to the router (Linux box the 2651 was OVERKILL :) The 2 AP's are own there o
    • Seems quite ironic that his link to Belkins homepage Wires are where its at goes to Belkins homepage with what on it? A wireless access point! HAHAHAHAHAHA SNARF

  • No UV, solving nonexistant problem, fire hazard (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @02:28PM (#5937966)
    low power ultraviolet light

    I just read the article quickly- there's absolutely nothing about a UV light.

    That is a regular FL bulb, and though the slashdot story seems to suggest/imply it, the light itself is not being used in any way/shape/form for data transmission/reception. This is simply "toss a small AP inside a tupperware bowl and add a FL light." Wow, what brilliance(pardon the pun.)

    I see this as solving a problem that doesn't exist- it takes an electrician all of 15 minutes to add a plug off an existing junction box if you want the AP up high by your lights, and with 802.11g, you can cover an entire cafe from practically any wall socket in the place.

    Continuing with the "truly a stupid idea" bit, FL tube bulbs like that get VERY hot(almost as hot as a regular bulb). Cooping one up in a tupperware bowl is a damn fine way to start a fire, or at least kill both components- probably the AP first; if it's electronics don't give out, the transformer's thermal fuse will(that's if it has one- many cheap transformers don't, and will happily melt down, short when the insultation melts, and start a fire.) The UL would die laughing at anyone who even tried to submit it for testing...

    • From what I read, the bulb isn't in the bowl, only the access point is. It's like the bowl is a base for the light that just happens to contain an 802.11b AP.
      • Try looking at the picture [nocat.net] next time. Even the text says so ... and the entire device just managed to squeeze inside.
        • Hmmm. I didn't see the picture at all.

          When they said that the entire device was inside, I assumed that they meant the AP. Silly me, assuming that no sane person would put a light bulb next to sensitive electronics like that.

          Oh, well. I was wrong.

    • Re:No UV, solving nonexistant problem, fire hazard (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @05:14PM (#5939628) Homepage
      Actually, Flourescent lighting doesn't get anywhere near as hot as filament lighting.

      Using the old finger-o-meter, of the three spread spectrum flourescent lights running in the apartment currently, all three can be touched for 5 seconds before the onset of physical discomfort. The relative lumen to filament conversion puts them at 60 watts, 60 watts, and 90 watts.

      Tupperware is also very difficult to set on fire, being plastic. That doesn't mean it is incapable of becoming so hot as to cause a system outage, but fire would not be the primary consideration.

      The cool idea is not the use of UV light as a transmittive medium, but the realization that you can put a wireless access point in a perfect location by combining a powerline ethernet circuit and your overhead lighting system. Now, whether or not that will bake your electronics is unimportant, as this is a "neat idea" rather than a "revolutionary product."

      Still, neat idea.

      • I completely agree with the fact that this isn't a proper commercial product, and as such it doesn't really matter, and they clearly don't write it as a "copy what I did cos it's cool" article.

        But fluorescents can easily get as hot as a filament bulb, and are far more dangerous when they go wrong.

        A filament bulb generally has only one mode of failure - the filament breaks. No more flow of current. I've seen the odd bulb where the insulation has broken down on the bayonet or screw and it has shorted, but t

    • I suspect cascadefx's logic goes something like this: when you shine an ultraviolet light on some things, they fluoresce. Following from the universally accepted axiom "where there's smoke, there's fire", we can conclude that where there's fluorescence, there must be ultraviolet. Therefore, if you have a fluorescent light, naturally, it must be actually be... an ultraviolet light!

      Fans of this logical style might wish to study Monty Python: A lesson in logical thought [sfdebris.com]"...

  • I see the future... (Score:3, Funny)

    by zakezuke ( 229119 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @02:30PM (#5937981)
    Rather then operating mechanical switches, I see the future, it will all be digital controled from a central console. No longer will you need to get up to turn on the light, you can do so from the convienence of your keyboard.

    If you want a snack, just access the approperate access gateway, wether it be the fridge door or cupboard, open it from your centralized location, and poof.

    It would only be a 10 - 25 meter walk at most, depending on the size of your place, and location of your centralized gateway. Just imagine, need some cream for your coffee, march to the PC, open the fridge, go to fridge, march back to PC, close fridge. Oh, forgot the sugar, march back to the pc, open cupboard, get sugar, and march back to pc, close cupboard.

    Modern convience at it's finest!
  • I'd rather have a small (size of a PCMCIA ethernet card) WAP dongle that plugs in a modem line and/or ethernet line for use with my wifi enabled laptop and PDA.

  • Looking at the tech specs you need a 120W/C, and we us 240 in the UK.

    Wonder if they will release a UK version.
  • A fluorescent bulb emits UV internally which is converted to visible light by the phosphors on the inside of the glass.

    Interesting idea, but putting any computer equipment on a switched outlet is not real bright (ha). If you are rewiring the lights to have a seperate switch, then you don't need this anyhow.

    -jake

  • Love the HHGTTG GUI (Score:3, Insightful)

    by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @03:48PM (#5938707) Journal
    "Its this wild colour scheme that freaks me, you know.
    When you press one of these black buttons that are labeled
    in black on a black background, a little black light lights
    up black to let you know you've done it!" - Zaphod.

    As various people have pointed out, the light bulb is a fluorescent, not a UV bulb, and the network stuff isn't there to control the light - the network stuff is there to provide 802.11 to the big room, and the light fixture was the convenient place to mount it.

  • How many geeks does it take to screw in a network?
  • I'm waiting for the hack which incorporates a webcam for painless installation into womens' locker rooms across America.

    -----------

  • powerline "Ethernet"??? (Score:3, Informative)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @04:44PM (#5939310)
    There really is no such thing as a "powerline Ethernet". Ethernet specifies the electrical characteristics of the network cables, and your home wiring doesn't conform.

    In any case, I kind of don't see the point. Why not just a a wireless repeater? With 802.11a/g that's a lot faster than this, and it means you don't have two separate networking technologies to hassle with. And usually, you want to cover an area completely anyway, so all wireless access points need to overlap, which mean that they can act as repeaters.

  • "Ubiquitous networking, here we come."

    Followed by Ubiquitous law enforcement.
  • Think these people ever heard of an outlet adapter? You know, the little thingy you screw in a light bulb socket that has two AC outlets, one on each side, and a light socket between. If they had used one of those, no "hacking" would be required!
  • Before even reading the writeup, I was hoping this was going to be about someone converting one of those little green glowing night lights everyone uses to little micro access points that have a range of just a few feet.. great for apartment dwellers and security-concious people living in condos.
  • Imagine if you will that you have an old home where running CAT-5 in the walls was going to be one of those nightmare projects that you just _so_ didn't want to face. Since your file servers live on your (currently CAT-5 wired) trusted internal network, the AC/Powerline version of this device (minus the wireless access point) starts to look pretty appealing!

    That is until one question occured to me. What _exactly_ stops my TCP/IP ethernet traffic from heading out past my breaker box and to my neighbors on

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