Connecting chip to an existing Wi-Fi network

General Othernet Discussions
1

I am an amateur radio operator looking to connect my Outernet receiver to our local mesh network here in Santa Barbara, Calif. USA. In the event that the public internet goes down, Outernet could provide a vital, satellite-based source for up-to-date content on our local system.

An easy way to get this on our system, or so I thought, would be to get the chip to join my Wi-Fi network which is connected to the mesh. Once on that LAN, I could expose the chip’s IP to the rest of the mesh users. I see some discussions on this thread about getting Skylark to join W-Fi networks but most are related to problems in doing so. Is there a way to get the chip to hop onto a network rather than having it create a hotspot itself?

2

Yeah there is a way and it’s easy. Just go to settings and connect to your Wifi :slight_smile:

Works great for me on Librarian, i even have Outernet at work over a vpn.

What software you are running? Skylark or Librarian?

For Librarian do the following steps:

  1. Go to Settings -> Network Interfaces
  2. set “Operation mode” to “Connect to a wii network”
  3. Enter your Wifi Data
  4. press Save and reboot

regards,
Manuel

3

Thanks for the reply, Manuel. I am using Skylark so the process will be different I believe. If I understand correctly, Librarian has been depreciated in favor of Skylark, am I correct?

4

Yeah you are correct, but i like Librarian better :slight_smile:

I think that the fake Desktop of Skylark is not the best option for a webinterface that only provides content.

I searched 2min for the Skylark instructions on google and it is as easy as in Librarian:

NETWORK
The network application provides information and settings for the built-in WiFi. Do not modify the pre-configured settings unless you are confident in what you are doing. To modify, follow these steps:

Network Mode – select “connect to a wifi router” and enter the credentials of your own internet WiFi access point to allow the receiver to send anonymous signal strength information to http://status.outernet.is/. This information helps us impove our service.
Hotspot Config - rename the Outernet WiFi. Check “Do not show in scan lists” to keep it from appearing in the available WiFi networks on devices.
Country – Set the WiFi to regional standards.
Channel – Set WiFi Channel.
Security – Enable to require users to provide a password to connect to the device’s WiFi.

That should help and solve your Problem.

regards from Germany,
Manuel

5

I came across those instructions as well but I was hesitant to proceed without some feedback. The network mode interface in Skylark is very limited and from what I have read (see this thread) it is very easy to render the chip unreachable.

6

If you enter the correct data, it should work fine. I would just try it as i did in Librarian :slight_smile:

regards,
Manuel