10 replies to this topic

[zapman]

Hi!

let me first give you some background why I'm looking for such a device:

I would like to use UMTS-Broadband with my Pandora but my cell phone doesn't support UMTS (therefor tethering is not an option). Buying a new 3G cell is out of the question, too expensive and the cell I have is working fine! (Nokia 2630) . A regular UMTS USB-stick is (imo) too big for the pandora on the go, that falls flat as well...

So I think a stand-alone device which can connect to an ISP via UMTS and to my Pandora via Bluetooth would be the ideal thing; of course it would have to bring its own power supply.

Is there such a device? I haven't found anything on the net but maybe someone has seen something similar?

Thx!

[EvilDragon]

Well, there is one for WiFi, but I have no idea how well it works with the Pandora.
Another one is here...

Haven't seen one with Bluetooth yet, but it would be way better (doesn't need as much power)

[zapman]

yay, that's exactly the hardware I'm looking for, but should have bluetooth instead of Wifi and maybe a bit smaller...

[kuru]

IMO there is no market for what you are looking for, it's either MiFi or cellphone.


BTW, is it possible to manually turn down the "RX power" of a WiFi chip to save battery?

[Xabier]

I think that mifi is what you are looking for And you are not going to get extra battery drain on ur pandora because of 3g

Edited by Xabier, 07 September 2010 - 12:33 PM.

[zapman]

I think that mifi is what you are looking for And you are not going to get extra battery drain on ur pandora because of 3g

nope, connecting to a mifi via wifi is too inefficient on the long run; enabling wifi on the pandora drains your battery almost twice as fast. BT would be better and the problem with a 3G stick is that it will eventually brake because it sticks out too far. Apart from that I doubt that 3G will be energy neutral to the pandora the 100mA from the USB OTG port doesn't give enough juice to fire a 3G stick...

[WizardStan]

BTW, is it possible to manually turn down the "RX power" of a WiFi chip to save battery?

If by RX power you mean TX power, yes. For example:
iwconfig wlan0 txpower 100mW
I forget exactly how high or low that value can go, but you should be able to experiment a little. It won't let you go higher than the maximum value, so no worries about blowing things up.

[Xabier]

So get a cheap phone with 3g and use it for tethering to the pandora via BT, it doesn't even need to be a smartphone

[kuru]

BTW, is it possible to manually turn down the "RX power" of a WiFi chip to save battery?

If by RX power you mean TX power, yes. For example:
iwconfig wlan0 txpower 100mW
I forget exactly how high or low that value can go, but you should be able to experiment a little. It won't let you go higher than the maximum value, so no worries about blowing things up.

That's straight forward, gotta love those shell commands. Will try this out on my phone, thanks a bunch!

[zapman]

Well, I figured out that I actually don't need any broadband access for my Pandora on the go.

To check emails and do some pidgin chatting, the GPRS on the GSM net is really enough. Costs me 24ct for 1mb (Medion mobile) which is quite a lot but considering how small text based emails are...

Anyway, GPRS via BlueTooth works fine with my Nokia 2630!

[zapman]

what I was looking for is finally coming up: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/24/option-xyfi-mobile-hotspot-tours-the-fcc-hsupa-in-tow/