McJumpBox: Leveraging Free Corporate Wi-Fi for Fun and Profit
Reverse engineers commercial 802.11ah Wi-Fi hardware to design a custom solar-powered long-range repeater running OpenWrt for off-grid remote connectivity.
Summary
Exploring Sub-GHz 802.11ah HaLow Wi-Fi
The 802.11ah (Wi-Fi HaLow) standard operates in sub-GHz frequencies (900 MHz), providing long-range, low-power wireless backhaul connections over multiple miles.
Reverse Engineering COTS Modules and Schematics
Loaning evaluates commercial 802.11ah modules, reverse engineering their schematics and firmware constraints to identify hardware design tradeoffs.
Designing Custom Solar-Powered OpenWrt Hardware
Building a custom battery- and solar-powered PCB running OpenWrt bridges 900 MHz sub-GHz backhaul links with standard 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz local Wi-Fi networks.
Operational Deployment and Remote Connectivity
Deploying pairs of repeater nodes enables reliable, long-range remote network bridges by leveraging public Wi-Fi hotspots at commercial establishments.
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