TouchOSC is a great little app for ipad/phone. I would love to use it to control touch without having to tote around my wireless router and its accompanying wall wart. is there a dongle or PCI wireless card that anyone has had success with that will allow a PC to connect wirelessly to my iphone ? I had a wireless N PCI card I got out of a Dell PC but I was not able to create a ‘base station’ with it- I’m not so sure that its the card or my lack of Win7 network config knowledge. How are people doing this generally ? I tried ‘ad-hoc’ network among many other configs.
Ideally I would have a PCI wireless card and my phone and touch OSC and thats it. Maybe I’m mistaken but it seems most cards are not good at anything beside joining networks (as opposed to creating independent ones).
The ad-hoc network should work. were you able to get the proper drivers for your machine and the Dell card? When you made an ad-hoc network were you able to make a network name and broadcasts the adapters SSID? If so were you able to connect to that network with your iphone? The reason I ask is that maybe you were able to create the network but because of the type of network you need to set everything up as a static network not using DHCP.
If you don’t have any luck by tomorrow I’ll see if I can make it happen with a Linksys wireless N dongle I’ve got.
I think so, but I trusted Win7 to tell me they were current ,rather than seeking them myself. Maybe I should get the exact model info and hunt them down myself rather than try automatically via ‘update driver’ in ‘device properties’[sic?]
I made a network name and I was able to see it on my phone, but it couldnt join -I guess that ‘proves’ the card is capable of being a ‘base station’ ?(dunno the Win parlance for that). Not sure about how to check/config SSID …(googling)
yeah, I kind of got that far and was looking for a way to either make the card a DHCP server and dish out an address for my phone, or use a completely static IP system. In either case I couldn’t really figure out how or where to plug the address in in Win7 when utilizing the ‘adhoc’ approach- where would one config the address?
I also pulled the card and used my outboard WLAN router to confirm I could make that device happen- and I did get TouchOSC/TD to communicate properly with that, so I know that much works- but that is not an ‘adhoc’ setup(I think it was DHCP server but I have to go back to ‘the lab’ in the next few days to confirm.)
I’m not very familiar with the ad-hoc network settings dialogs, although I assume that you’ll need to set up your static settings in the adapter settings dialog. tonight when i get home I’ll try setting it up with my wireless dongle and let you know how it goes.
Also I’ve found the windows updater is relatively useless for finding and installing most drivers. I would definitely recommend going to the manufacturer’s site and downloading the official software/driver.
Okay so I just got my iphone with TouchOSC running on it connected to Touch with an ad-hoc network using a wireless N USB adapter. Here is what I did:
create an adhoc network in the network and sharing center:
- choose “set up a new connection or network”
- choose “set up a wireless ad hoc network”
- name the network and make security type no authentication
now click on “Change adapter settings” on the left side of the Network and Sharing Center page
right click on the wireless network adapter being used for the ad hoc network and select “properties”
select “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/Ipv4)” and then click on “properties”
check “Use the following IP address”
set the IP address and Subnet mask (for me they are 192.168.0.215 and 255.255.255.0)
in the iphone select “Settings”, “Wi-Fi” and then select the new network made and press the arrow on the right to adjust the settings for the network
-choose “Static” and then type in a new IP address for the phone and and same subnet mask as the computer
in TouchOSC enter the computer’s IP address for the outgoing address and enter the port you have your OSCin chop set to
done
If this doesn’t work, you might want to consider the using a usb dongle instead of the Dell adapter. The USB adapter I used is a D-Link wireless N, DWA160-A2. Also I have Windows firewall completely disabled on that machine (both in the control panel and in services)
yeah, so i got it working for a second after i took down windows firewall for a bit and followed a variation of your recipe for static IP’s , but not reliably. Ad-hoc is a temporary network protocol it seems, and for that reason not practical for what I want to do. I coldnt figure out how to make a non-adhoc setup. I get the feeling this little card will just nver easily support the idea of being a ‘wireless router’, per se, so Im ditcing the idea and maybe get an usb dongle and just mount it inside the chassis. let me ask you one more question though if I may- were you able to make a non-adhoc network with touchOSC ?
I think it must be that Dell adapter you’ve got. the connection totally solid for me with the D-Link adapter. I think you if bought a new Linksys(Cisco) or D-link PCI adapter it would work fine for you. You could always return it if doesn’t work. Also I can’t see a PCI/PCIe adapter not working as well as a USB one.
Also you could consider disabling Windows firewall and then just use the WEP password to log onto to the network. You would then still be protected from anyone accessing your machine, you wouldn’t be protected from the internet though but if your using the ad hoc setup (which wouldn’t be connected to the internet) and don’t have any physical ethernet cables connecting to you to any other networks you should be safe. If you do want to connect to a network like at home with a cable you could use your routers firewall to protect you from the net (which is how were setup).
Unless you use some 3rd party software to broadcast an SSID and create a connection I think ad hoc is the only way (unless using a wireless router). I did find this connectify.me/ which seems like it might work pretty good.
I got a cheap wireless N dongle and found the same scenario basically. Although I was able to establish a connection from my phone to TD I wasn’t able to save it and toggle on/off without lots of effort each time.
With Keith’s help here’s basically what I’ve gleaned:
‘adhoc’ is a protocol similar to bluetooth- i.e intended to be temporary and short range.
‘adhoc’ seems to be the only way to make a non-router wireless device become a ‘base station’(transmitter station)
there are little to no PCI cards on the market that are ‘internal wireless routers’.
Basically this whole exercise was an attempt to make a network that I could use to take to gigs, without having to trudge around a router and wallwart.
Keith , it sounds like you had no big issues with the usb solution- one more question: if you could imagine having to do this on a tour do you think the adhoc retains most of the config info, or do yo need to start from scratch each time you power up ?
So I had disconnected the dongle this morning before I turned on that computer and then when I read your post I plugged it back in and just like you said, I had to make a new adhoc network. So then I made a new network (called “test”) so I could see what happens when I turned off and on the computer without unplugging the adapter. In the create network settings I noticed though that there is check box labelled “save network” so I checked it. I then connected my iphone to the new network (which worked fine with TD), turned off the computer and then back on again.
Now at first there was no “test” network being broadcast from the machine to the iphone, I then left clicked on the wireless network icon in the system tray and noticed that the “test” network as well as a previous ad-hoc network I had made were listed as well as the other wireless networks we have in the studio. I clicked on the test network and then the connect button and boom the test network was back and my iphone then connected and I was able to control Touch again.
So to answer your question if I think its worth it use an ad hoc network. If you can get to work like I just did (where you have to just select the network) then sure I think it would be worth it.
I came to the conclusion that a router is gonna be the way to go for my applications, despite the ‘boat anchor’ of a wallwart, etc. The advantages of a router:
increased range
multiple simultaneous users
relative ease of setup( I plugged it in and it worked!)
firewall protected local subnet with simultaneous internet access…
no ‘clean lines’ like I hoped for in my setup, but that is life!