Flutter: $20 Wireless Arduino with 1 km range

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2021474419/flutter-20-wireless-arduino-with-half-mile-1km-ran

by trafnar • 13 years ago

363 139 13 years ago

I'm imagining quadcopters carrying these out to far flung geographical locations and creating a 'drone net' anywhere (hazardous terrain, repressed nations, etc.).

jeffreyg• 13 years ago

You should google for 'wireless sensor networks'. There are some really cool research projects in this field.

Sparverius• 13 years ago

I'm not clear, what type of bandwidth can we expect from this? I can see this being useful even if it's very low bandwidth, but I'd like to know what I'm getting into.

How does it handle interference? I'm assuming 1 kilometer is optimal. How does the encryption affect transfer speed? There's a lot of important questions that need to be answered before I'd consider putting down money on this.

freehunter• 13 years ago

The Kickstarter doesn't directly say this, but it uses the ISM band (900mhz in the US). The chip they're using has a maximum throughput rate of 500kbps. They're combining the features of wifi and bluetooth for fast speeds over short distances and supplementing it with an ISM radio for slower speeds over longer distances.

Since it has 256-bit AES encryption, I would guess they are basing it off something like an XBee/ZigBee/RFBee.

solistice• 13 years ago

Seeing this made me think of the exact same question. Also, what bandwidth do you get at 1km distance?

By the way, for lower ranges, there are allready solutions out there, like the TI CC3000[1] and the electric imp[2]. They use wifi though.

On a related note, don't put weird antenna spouting rat nets projects into central park if you're not looking for some fun with homeland security.

[1]http://www.ti.com/product/cc3000 [2]http://electricimp.com/developers/

juliusdeane• 13 years ago

They're saying max 1.2Mbps on the press page

http://www.flutterwireless.com/press.html

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

It's been a hectic few days organizing all that information, but here's the lowdown:

Currently we are using the CC1101 Radio, which maxes out at 600kbps. It's an excellent radio, but has been basically unchanged since 2006, when TI bought chipcon (who made the CC1101).

The CC1200 was recently announced as a successor, and it looks pretty amazing. The max data rate of that chip is 1.2Mbps, and it has increased transmit power and sensitivity. The chip is priced roughly the same as the CC1101 and is based off of the same code, so we should be able to port everything to it quickly and pick up development with it. There is a possibility that the chip will have some flaw that makes it a show stopper, but it's intended by Texas Instruments to be a nearly drop in replacement, and if it does what the datasheet says it should handily work for us.

There is a possibility that we will end up not being able to use the CC1200 though, giving us a max data rate of 600kbps in that case, and I realize I need to make that clear, so I will go write up that copy on our Kickstarter page now. I definitely don't want there to be any confusion about what we're selling, so I apologize for not making that clear to any backers, I'll mention the change in our coming backer update, which will largely be directed at international backers, who we are working to accommodate!

noonespecial3• 13 years ago

I'm encouraged to see that projects like these are at least becoming aware that they will face challenges getting FCC certified as intentional radiators (and are required to in the first place!) but I still think they might be underestimating this difficulty. I've seen projects burn $90k going back to the testing lab over and over tweaking this and that to get within acceptable specs only to find when they went to production that a few key things on their BOM were discontinued by suppliers and they essentially had to start over.

Best of luck to them.

ambirex• 13 years ago

It looks like they are using TI chips for the wireless (CC1101 for prototyping but it looks like they are targeting the CC1200 for release).

The have a little more technical information on their website - http://www.flutterwireless.com/press.html

http://www.ti.com/product/cc1101 http://www.ti.com/product/cc1200

noonespecial3• 13 years ago

Thats actually a really good choice. Like choosing the LTS version of your distro to develop on. Things have definitely gotten better than the "bad old days" my war stories are from. These new integrated radio-on-a-chip are much easier to deal with and manufactures are taking their reference designs seriously with an eye toward helping smaller projects clear these hurdles. Using TI instead of obscure-asian-manufacturer is also a good choice.

That said, if they're depending on ($80k - kickstarter fees) alone to get off the ground, I think that's a bit sparse. Then again, they seem to have done an above average level of pre-campaign development.

joelhaasnoot2• 13 years ago

I believe this is the reason Wifi USB dongles are so ubiquitous, even in other electronic devices.

noonespecial3• 13 years ago

In general, the more modularized you can make your "politically inconvenient" technology parts the better. The trouble with "but with a radio integrated!" projects is that when you change any other parts on the board, you are required to re-certify the entire thing, even if the radio portion hasn't changed. This spells trouble for fast-moving "versioned" parts like ARM cpus, especially when you're small scaled and the version you're on might get discontinued next month.

michaelt2• 13 years ago

If someone who'd designed a radio board wanted to understand more about getting FCC certified, where would you point them?

devindotcom• 13 years ago

Very cool. The type of thing that could be used to set up a nice little mesh network, although I'm guessing it would have to be restricted bandwidth-wise, which is kind of what I always envisioned anyway. Nice that it has that on-chip crypto.

Would be good to see how it performs as a mesh in an urban area, though. Would these need to be mounted atop buildings? On eaves? On light poles?

Definitely needs a weather-proof enclosure, too!

xSwag• 13 years ago

1 half mile = 0.804672 kilometres

aray3• 13 years ago

Tested to 1 kilometer, mentioned in the Features section at the link.

joelhaasnoot2• 13 years ago

Which in the end is the range you can get from Wifi line of sight with the right antenna but with much higher bandwith.

walshemj2• 13 years ago

And you are allowed to pump more power through 2.4GHZ as opposed to 900MZ and 2.4 antennas have better gain properties.

devx• 13 years ago

Seems great for meshnets, and I think this is only the beginning of such technology.

lcasela• 13 years ago

Deff.

I'm actually seriously considering starting a meshnet in my neighborhood.

jjsz• 13 years ago

I'm considering it for my university-it doesn't have a mesh net yet. Like someone said in here, autonomous, self sufficient quadrocopters that power mesh servers is also my dream. What stack and chips / devices are you going to use?

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

Do it! As soon as we have the new hardware up and running we're going to play with mesh nets ourselves!

jws• 13 years ago

ARM, IO pins, on board antenna.

$30 adds an external antenna and battery charging circuitry.

ISM bands, mesh networking. The chip they are using do 1200bps and 2400bps at low power, but the data sheets talk about 600kbps capabilities of the modem. I'd plan on the 1200 or 2400 if you are thinking 1km. Look to IEEE 802.15.4-2003 (Low Rate WPAN) for more information. (TI CC1200, or currently TI CC1101).

They are aiming for strong cryptography. Keys are kept in a dedicated crypto IC. (Atmel ATSHA204)

Shields planned for RC servers, LAN, and bluetooth.

This could be my new favorite Arduino class board.

swah2• 13 years ago

I thought Arduino = ATMega, is any ARM coming close in terms of power usage?

stbtrax• 13 years ago

Arduino due is an ARM cortex m3 (microcontroller ARM). ATmega's aren't particularly known for their power consumption, you have always been able to get lower power ARMs.

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

The plan is for it to be my favorite, and I'm designing it, so I hope so!

I'm trying to design the system I've needed for years, because the problems I've had building robots generalize to nearly all the problems that Arduino users have.

We are aiming to nail this.

eterm2• 13 years ago

This is the first time I've tried to back something on ks but sadly I've hit a wall, "us shipping only" on every level of funding.

Can you add a tier for euro/intl backers? I'd love to see this product.

jpitz• 13 years ago

For a KS with a goal this low, they likely aren't targeting anything but US-approved radios.

Someone• 13 years ago

Have you read the FAQ? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2021474419/flutter-20-wi...:

"Currently, Flutter only operates in the 915MHz radio band, which is US only for consumer electronics. Our boards support the few other bands used throughout the rest of the world, so we can design versions for Europe and other regions, but unless our campaign is well over-funded, we're not able to commit to international versions. Spread the word and maybe we can!"

eterm2• 13 years ago

Thanks, in my hurry to back I had not, I was going to say that there could at least be a t-shirt tier which didn't appear backable from the 'checkout' screen but actually it looks like it is, so I'll go for that.

edit: Kickstarter is preventing me from getting the $25 t-shirt tier, asking me to say I'm in the US and otherwise looping back to the same page.

oftenwrong• 13 years ago

I wonder what the power consumption is like, and if it would be practical to run one off of solar power.

agumonkey• 13 years ago

Exactly my question. I `dream` about an autonomous wireless mesh.

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

yes you absolutely can do this! We will have ultra low power sleep modes, and the radio can turn on briefly to send status, or listen in low power mode for remote communications.

jstsch2• 13 years ago

If you want something similar but simpler, take a look at the JeeNode: http://jeelabs.org/ (Arduino+RFM12B)

swah2• 13 years ago

Other advantages: already exists and costs 22.50 USD. (http://moderndevice.com/product/jeenode-v6-kit/)

KaiserPro• 13 years ago

and comes with an excellent set of libraries.

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

Interesting. Does our product not seem simple? We're working on some fancy mesh protocol stuff for making DIY projects easy, but those features don't have to be enabled at all. You definitely could use this just like an arduino with a radio attached, we'll have full libraries for sending data to any device directly, and our code will have copyleft licences (thinking GPL, haven't decided yet) and we will encourage forks.

You can look at them as basically just compute and radio modules - they can be used however you'd like!

jstsch2• 13 years ago

With simpler I meant: something if you just want to do some RF within your home using Arduino. But Flutter looks very exciting if you want to do something more fancy :)

vmarsy• 13 years ago

About high range antennas, I'm more excited by the sigfox technology (25 miles/40 km range) : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6285796

bnejad2• 13 years ago

Does anyone see what are the range differences between the two models? (basic and pro)

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

We rated both as 1km max, but the basic will have an integrated antenna, with reduced performance. The current radio chipset theoretically maxes out at 3km though, and we haven't actually maxed out range ever, before maxing out distance (we have to use google earth just to find places!).

Pro will have better range due to the antenna, but the basic will get a pretty high-performing antenna too.

bnejad2• 13 years ago

That pretty ambiguous. If they don't have the same range, then you shouldn't just ballpark them as both "1km max" because that doesn't really tell me anything.

biturd• 13 years ago

Why are they able to be able to get so much more range out of this product than regular Wi-Fi is able to get?

lutusp2• 13 years ago

Much higher radio power level.

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

actually not at all, we have less TX power than most wifi devices. The data rate is inversely proportional to range, as is the frequency. We operate at a lower frequency than wifi (915 MHz), and a much lower data rate (your Arduino probably does not need a 100Mbps connection). This gets us range without blasting people with radio or having trouble with the FCC.

rauar3• 13 years ago

Lower bandwidth... and from one other comment they could be using lower frequencies as well.

walshemj2• 13 years ago

wifi can do 1km easily just use more tx power and a suitable antennas.

nathan_f77• 13 years ago

Perfect. Exactly what I've needed for a lot of project ideas.

swamp402• 13 years ago

How come it says $20 in the title, then doesn't let you buy anything for $20?

mryan• 13 years ago

If the KS is successful they will sell boards starting at $20.

salemh• 13 years ago

From the KS page: "Flutter Basic ($20)

Still under development, the Flutter basic is tiny and simple. You get all the features of Flutter in a circuit board with an low-profile integrated antenna, rather than the large antenna shown in the video. Featuring micro USB for power and programming, components on both sides to reduce size, an LED, and a button, as well as plenty of digital and analog I/O."

icebraining• 13 years ago

"$5 shipping to anywhere in the US included."

PStamatiou• 13 years ago

I want to buy a bunch and build an alternate internet mesh network a la https://twitter.com/Stammy/status/372450697742008322

gboudrias• 13 years ago

It probably doesn't have good enough range, especially through obstacles. Most of the nodes in our mesh use 15dbi antennas for that reason.

AnIrishDuck2• 13 years ago

I see encryption everywhere in the pitch, but nothing about authentication. Doing a little research, the datasheet indicates their crypto module [1] does support HMACs. That said, I'm a little leery of a pitch that (a) doesn't appear to understand the distinction between encryption and authentication and (b) doesn't state they plan on providing both.

Just my 2c.

[1] http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-8740-CryptoAuth-ATSHA204-D...

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

Hey there! I'm the designer of the product (and co-founder). Totally understand, we've been working as hard as we can to provide clear information, and I had a lot more written about encryption and cryptoauthentication before I realized it may be too focused (we want to get regular people excited about building projects). Cryptography is incredibly important to me, and my ultimate plan is for these boards to be useful in creating dark mesh nets so people can communicate freely even when others try to cut them off. The protocol will be lightweight and we support sending arbitrary data, so it shouldn't be hard to patch it into a network. I still remember the cryptocat articles from a couple months back, and the snooping from the NSA has turned me into a crypto evangelist, so I absolutely intend to provide real strong cryptography. I also understand how skeptical people are (and should be) about crypto systems, so as I'm still learning about this stuff I've been careful not to boast too much before I've got the exact system sorted.

Currently the plan is full support for multiple master keys for different purposes (one for firmware updates, one for data, perhaps one for trusted guests, out of 16 total possible keys), per-packet session keys using AES-256, and I'm very curious about ECC, which it appears our system might support, since the encrypt/decrypt are software (though the new radio has an AES-128 hardware engine too).

We'll give a LOT of detailed information on the development of this system as it happens (after the kickstarter). My plan is to design a system that any HN reader would be proud of. We're not going to "let open source do it", we're writing it ourselves and I've loaded my tablet full of crypto e-books so I can genuinely learn from the ground up how to do that. Even if ultimately I don't write the software, I absolutely will not sell a system as cryptographically secure unless I personally understand how it is built and why it is secure.

AnIrishDuck2• 13 years ago

Your enthusiasm is encouraging, just keep in mind the standard warning that crypto is very easy to do wrong (and wrong in a way that's hard to detect until your platform is blown wide open, see e.g. the PS3 root key disaster). In particular, a ton of academics argue that encryption (e.g. vanilla AES) by itself isn't very useful, and authenticated encryption [1] should be the default offered to standard users. There are multiple ways to achieve this, your hardware may support AE modes like GCM or others.

Keep in mind that crypto's only half the battle, and even "perfectly valid" crypto can still leave your platform vulnerable to things like replay attacks [2]. e.g. lets say someone uses your board as a doorbell: a crafty attacker can sniff the doorbell packet and replay it constantly if you don't use something like a request counter.

Point is: you shouldn't make your users cobble those steps together, they'll get them wrong. You're in fact very likely to get them wrong yourself, if (as you say) you're still learning the ins and outs of crypto. I wish you the best of luck, but keep in mind that you have a long journey ahead of you. I'd particularly recommend you complete the Matasono crypto challenge [3] before you even think of trying your hands on raw crypto primitives.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authenticated_encryption 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_attack 3. http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto-challenges/

bhitov• 13 years ago

Did you consider using the ATAES instead of the ATSHA? It has onboard authenticated AES (AES-CCM).

chrisfarms• 13 years ago

I want a UK one! Damn those poorly distributed airwaves.

The EU allows the 136Khz band for amateurs I believe. It would be like communicating via semaphore in the fog and would probably need pretty large antenna, but we could be talking some serious arduino <--> arduino range... 50km+ I'd expect.

leepowers• 13 years ago

Awesome project. Reminds of SparkCore which was on KickStarter earlier this year:

https://www.sparkdevices.com/

I wonder if it would be possible to wire an antenna to the Spark and match the 1km range of the Flutter....

aray3• 13 years ago

SparkCore uses TI's CC3000 unit (http://www.ti.com/product/cc3000) which is a 2.4GHz wi-fi module.

Flutter is using CC1001/CC1200, which are 900MHz radios. 900MHz (as a longer wave) will travel much farther to begin with, plus the module is designed for longer-range use :)

(Also if you put a 900MHz antenna on a 2.4GHz radio you're gonna have a bad time)

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

Yeah, they're in the same space as us. We hope that our range, low price, and extreme flexibility will really win people over. Wifi is not really a good protocol for Arduino. If you just want to send a few bytes (like "On", "Off", or sensor data like "215"), then wifi is across the board many levels more complex than is needed.

Flutter isn't the minimum needed, but it's essentially the minimum needed to build a secure mesh solution.

And unlike wifi modules, we have bare metal control over our radio chip, which gives us a lot more room for doing interesting things, like indoor 3D positioning (which we haven't tested yet, so I have no statistics on the accuracy... yet).

The cool thing is, we will research indoor positioning, and every other use of this board we can. I think an open radio and computing module with encryption, long range comms, and ultra low power usage (sleep modes should allow for a year on a coin cell, though again, that has not been verified yet).

chrissnell2• 13 years ago

Lots of misinformation in these comments. For those dreaming of building a mesh Internet alternative, consider that these devices are not being designed for TCP/IP. From the looks of the KS page, they are going to speak a mesh protocol but likely something proprietary, perhaps similar to ZigBee, that is designed as a wire-replacement protocol for Arduino-to-Arduino comms. That's a long way from Internet routing.

They are offering a WiFi shield but it's backed by the Arduino. Not really something that you want to mesh-route TCP/IP, in my opinion. There are more suitable choices.

I'm also a little concerned about selling a device that is so high-powered by default. I'm assuming that they're using 900 MHz here. Is it really necessary for everybody to transmit with enough power to reach 1 km? In the US, there's a FCC rule that says that amateur radio operators use the minimum power necessary when transmitting. I'm not sure if it applies to a device like the Flutter but it probably should.

ohazi7• 13 years ago

From the datasheet of the TI radio they're using[0], the maximum programmable output power is +12 dBm, which is about 16 milliwatts.

There's no way you're going to see the advertised range with the antenna pictured. For comparison, the wifi hardware in your laptop typically outputs around 100-200 milliwatts.

Edit: TI appears to have a "range extender" part (i.e. a power amp) that can kick the output power up to +27 dBm (500 mW) at the band that they're using. I don't see any mention of this part on the kickstarter page, but this is the only plausible way I can see for them to get anywhere near the range advertised.

Half a watt seems pretty high to me too, but apparently it's comfortably within FCC limits [1][2], and since ISM devices are designed for consumer use (as opposed to licensed use by a competent radio operator), I don't think the same rules about being clever with output power would still apply here.

[0] http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/cc1101.pdf

[1] http://www.afar.net/tutorials/fcc-rules/

[2] http://www.beagle-ears.com/lars/engineer/wireless/fccrules.h...

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

Hah, thanks for the edit. Yeah we've already gotten the range. I've even checked the output of our boards with a radio expert (google Earl McCune, he's an advisor), and using his many expensive Agilent scopes we've experimentally verified that performance of my design is pretty much exactly on par with the reference designs, taking into account that we are using a custom designed RF balun [1] instead of the discretes they use on the reference design. Our RF Expert confirmed I had made a good choice with that, as the losses are tiny compared to ease of manufacturing it provides.

[1] (I think it's this one, I'd have to check the part number, they have a couple similar ones). http://www.johansontechnology.com/datasheets/chipset-specifi...

Dwolb7• 13 years ago

Wifi operates at a higher frequency and data rate, which both reduce range.

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

We are definitely designing these to support mesh networks, and though I haven't written it down anywhere yet, we're not going to default the radios to full on, that will either be automatically configured (probably too difficult, but I'll look into it) or just manually specified. I would really love to make it automatic though, and for anything under constant comms they could easily communicate their signal strength in the ack if needed to coordinate that. The mesh protocols are still under development (that's what we need Kickstarter for!).

Our wifi + ethernet shield makes it easy to have an always on device that routes traffic for home Flutter networks, but you can also just plug the board into your PC over USB and feed it traffic that way, you can run arbitrary data of any size over the link and all communications are guaranteed (or explicitly timeout), so I think piping TCP/IP over it will be easy.

You can also use a raspberry pi and one of our boards to accomplish what the network shield does (for roughly the same price) but the network shield is designed for exactly this purpose, and many people will find value in that.

It's tough to pitch an Arduino with lots of highly technical capabilities - Arduino users just want to know "but can i make a wireless beer brew setup?" That's the kind of information we try to speak to on the KS page. We're also still learning what questions people have!

chrissnell2• 13 years ago

Thanks for the reply, Taylor. Perhaps you can explain this to me:

What niche are you guys trying to fill with this? I guess I'm just not seeing it yet. You talk about "piping TCP/IP" over the data link but how is this superior that using any of of the dozens of other powerful, low-cost, mesh solutions purposely designed for TCP/IP routing?

Maybe you're trying to fill the "talk to my kegerator" niche. OK, but how is this superior to the Xbee shield [0]? That shield interfaces with a number of different Xbee products that offer a wide variety of power outputs and ranges. These Xbees do mesh networking out of the box. How does Flutter do it better? Help me understand. :)

[0] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10854

adunk• 13 years ago

I can't speak for the creators of Flutter, but I can definitely attest to that TCP/IP with full mesh routing should be doable with the Flutter hardware. We (Thingsquare) have the CC1101 as one of our supported hardware platforms and use it to run full TCP/IPv6 networking over a self-forming mesh. The system is used in a number of commercial products and systems. The chip-level firmware is open source so I guess the creators or backers of the Flutter system might even be able use it pretty much out of the box: http://thingsquare.com/tech/

One of the things needed to get full IP routing working is to do channel switching over the sub-GHz connection. Both the FCC and ETSI regulations let you transmit at a higher power and with longer bursts if you switch channels with a regular interval and if you back off if you find other transmissions in your channel.

That said, TCP/IP routing over a sub-GHz CC1101 link isn't going to be very fast. It is suitable for automated devices but not a general purpose replacement for WiFi connectivity. For IEEE 802.15.4g-compliance, the raw bit rate is 50 kbit/s which isn't a lot. The CC1101 can be run in faster, non-802.15.4g compliant, modes though.

stevenrace2• 13 years ago

Agreed. This isn't going to form the 'alternate Internet' that some people are clamoring for. But there are tons of applications (machine->machine) where a basic serial/ssh is all that's required.

We've had similar hardware in the field for 3+ years now, covering ~50 square kilometers in a mesh configuration.

gdc• 13 years ago

I wouldn't be putting too much money up for this until it's clear what frequency they'll be using and what (if any) FCC certification is finished.

outside1234• 13 years ago

This looks promising but two questions:

1. How do new nodes authenticate into the network? 2. Is it possible to get a USB version that could hook into a higher powered device, say a Raspberry Pi, that would act as the gateway to the internet for this mesh network.

EdwCoady• 13 years ago

Can someone explain how this is any different from electric imp or Zigbee.

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

I'll try! (I made it)

Electric imp is Wifi and does not function without an internet connection (at least, thats what they told us at the first hackathon). It also doesn't function without a router.

We're a lot closer to Zigbee - basically the same idea. We send data directly from board to board, unlike wifi which always runs through your router. We basically use every board as a router.

The advantage over zigbee is price, Arduino, openness, and range. We have 10 times the range of $22 zigbee modules, and 5 times the range of their $50 modules, all in an easy arduino package.

Does that answer your questions?

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

Hey HN! I'm the creator and co-founder of this project. I've been designing robots since I was 15 and hacking on electronics since I could hold a screwdriver. What I think you'll like most about this project is the open source long range encrypted wireless link our mesh provides. I discovered Hacker News about a year ago and have been a regular reader since, so I remember Cryptocat, the NSA, and all the other things that reminded us why cryptography is important, and why implementing it is critical.

So, a few answers:

Yes, you can do encrypted mesh networks over long range. I'm a hardcore robotics guy at heart - the name "Flutter" was chosen exactly because this protocol is designed to be as lightweight as possible, and though the mesh protocol itself is still being developed (basically, that's why we need kickstarter, aside from the fact that I'm tired of ramen), I really intend for the protocol to stay out of the way. You'll also have full control over what happens, so you can always turn meshing off and use hard addressing. It's still really simple to use that way and cheaper than everything else I've seen that compares.

I absolutely will not sell a product as "cryptographically secure" unless I believe it is, and I understand that the "smallest" flaw in a cryptographic system can render the entire system worthless. I am learning everything I can about cryptography, starting with some amazing e-books I have found on the subject, and just like wireless

Our data rate is proportional to our range (this is generally true for any radio system), so we get 1km range at low data rates (1200baud tested, but we physically ran out of test room and had a strong signal). Theoretically this radio can do 3km at 1200 baud and it looks like we should be able to do 1km at 30kbps at least. Also I think the new radio chip doubles all the data rates in these cases (I would have to confirm), and I do know the new chip has higher transmit power and higher sensitivity, so range should be even better.

There is a cheap radio amplifier (PA and LNA) called the CC1190, and texas instruments has all kinds of datasheets on using either of the two radios we are working with to give us 10km range, or much better data rates at 1km, etc. We're going to design the protocol with expansion in that direction in mind, if people really dig the range thing (it's a bit much for a beer brew setup, but if you want dark meshnets, lets do it!)

I'm a hacker at heart. I first learned lockpicking at the old Noisebridge location (the original one). I love 3D printers and open source, did a rant/thread about open hardware on the Ultimaker mailing list a year back (I was one of the first in the bay area to get an Ultimaker too, and designed a new mount for it that I have on thingiverse). I got on hackaday for some 3d printed helicopter blades, and have been building robots since I was 15. There's a longer bio about me on our site, at flutterwireless.com

See also me ten years ago talking about robots (and I feel silly for the "few people do" comment, but I was 15 and trying to keep it simple). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FJu1eL_dYs

Please ask me anything!

vecinu• 13 years ago

I noticed you say that the radio band is US only but does it exclude Canadians from using Flutter as well? I only ask because you seem to mention Europe and Asia as 'international'.

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

Honestly I completely didn't expect the outpouring of support from international backers. We're two hackers in silicon valley building a product out of my apartment, and honestly canada, mexico, europe - I'm not surprised you guys want it (that's the point!) but I was completely blown away at how serious the international support is! I'm thrilled, excited, and happy to figure it out though!

I think we probably can sell in all of North America without changes, I'm checking on it. Europe is also pretty easy design wise, I just need to consult with our radio expert about certification, it was something I just did not look into, with all the things it takes to make this happen! But I should update the FAQ to say "we're" looking into it, since we absolutely now are!

bolster• 13 years ago

Hey Taylor, Greetings from Belfast, Northern Ireland (Well, not currently, I travel a bit... anyway).

Disappointed that this appears to be US only. would love to use a few of these for monitoring our Hackerspace!

Actually I'm also involved in mobile ad hoc security research so might try and 'acquire' a few of these for testing out some collaborative network theories on our quadcopters... but can't do that as current delivery status stands!

Good luck with certification.

michaelt2• 13 years ago

Will it be possible to change the radio firmware without losing FCC certification?

Does the message go straight from one end of the mesh network to the other, or can it store things for later forwarding?

Can it really support a mesh network with thousands of clients? In a mesh network with thousands of clients, how much bandwidth does each client get?

How do you divide time between different clients - is it contended like wifi so you have to keep the network uncongested?

How does roaming work? What triggers provoke roaming events?

If I want to communicate with one device 10cm away and another 10km away at the same time, is that possible? How do you avoid near-far problems?

AsymetricCom• 13 years ago

I'm glad you stayed away from other ARM Cortex chips with TrustZone and SecureOS installed. I see the propriety chip you use for radio is pretty simple. Are there other proprietary systems on here?

Also, I don't feel comfortable donating before a finalized hardware design is reached. I feel the potential for bait-and-switch is too high and no words will convince me otherwise due to the nature of crowd-sourcing EULA, sorry.

aray3• 13 years ago

TrustZone is exclusive to Cortex-A ARM chips. These are the big, beefy chips that run mobile phones and tablets.

This (Flutter) is using a Cortex-M ARM chip, which is entirely different. These are used in small, embedded devices. Like wireless headphones, or robotics. Cortex-M chips don't have TrustZone.

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

I understand your reservations, crowd funding can be a crap shoot. I've already got the BOM sorted out for the final hardware, we're just hitting kickstarter to verify that all the work required to finish this will be worth our while.

The more backers we get, the easier delivering this hardware will be. I won't try to convince you of anything you can't be convinced of, but I will tell you that if you are interested I would really appreciate your support, and as per the kickstarter terms of service I can at least promise that if what we are delivering does not meet your needs, you can cancel your order and we will refund the full amount.

The EULA does require me to either deliver or refund you, and I absolutely will comply with that.

I'd also suggest waiting to see? You could back us at $25 so you get the updates, and then cancel before it finishes if you would prefer not to spend any money at all.

And yeah, the radio chip is pretty simple. It's basically a cheap general purpose radio. The other proprietary chip is the Atmel ATSHA204, which you don't even need to use, but provides some excellent cryptographic functions.

Either way, I look forward to winning you over at some point, even if that's not till the products ship and the reviews are in! :)

JeremyBanks• 13 years ago

I'm glad that it's going to be open-source, but are there also any plans to have the crypto professionally audited?

tarekmoz• 13 years ago

The first app that comes to my mind is using those for a secured messaging protocol.

songgao2• 13 years ago

Long distance is tempting, but it isn't necessarily a good idea. All kinds of wireless interference/collision will make available bandwidth really low.

For example, on 2.4 GHz 802.11 protocols, there are 11 channels from 1 to 11. All wireless routers operating in US have to be on one of the 11 channels. When there are other wireless APs within the range, you and others share the channel. There's a limitation on how much bandwidth a channel can give in total. That's the hard limitation, given that CSMA/CA works well. That's why channel 3 and channel 8 often work great (most wireless routers have default channel choice 1, 6, or 11) - they are far away from defaults that others are using.

Same thing applies to 5 GHz 802.11 networks.

Now back to this project. 1 km is really long distance. You get communication range as large as a circle with radius being 1 km. There are a lot of wireless devices that fall in this range. You might not get affected by them since they don't have that powerful antennas, but your signals will effectively lower the bandwidth of all routers in the area.

joenathan• 13 years ago

For 2.4Ghz only channels 1, 6 or 11 should be used as those are the only interdependent non-overlapping channels.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/technology/channel/...

http://blog.saddey.net/2007/07/08/wifi-insights-why-you-shou...

songgao2• 13 years ago

That's interesting to know! Thanks for the link.

SilliMon• 13 years ago

What band is it using?

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

915 MHz ISM. We're working on international support.

I made it, so ask away if you have any other questions!

simonebrunozzi• 13 years ago

There's an Italian company called ForiniCom that built its own devices; they are around 40-50$ to produce, but they truly provide a Mesh network.

Unfortunately it's only in Italian: http://com-com.it/

I know they are managing more than 4,000 nodes now, and it works great.

I also know that offering a service like this is hard. A kickstarter campaign sometimes makes things look too easy.

TaylorAlexander28• 13 years ago

Don't worry, I know this isn't easy, but I don't like easy things, they're boring. My last project involved hand-winding motor coils for a linear motor I built from scratch, along with a 24v 10A per channel driver board & ARM CPU mainboard I designed and built. It was a pretty neat system, but robots are complicated, so I'm going to sell circuit boards for a while and dive into software development some more.

Ecio78• 13 years ago

Simone you can't compare the two things: they are an ISP and according to their tech pages it looks like they're using linux-powered devices in order to create an Hiperlan mesh network for internet access. It's like comparing.. a Raspberry PI with Telecom Italia/T-Mobile/Verizon deploying their own home routers for Internet access... You're also saying "offering a service is hard", Flutter is not offering a mesh service, they're trying to provide an Arduino compatible electronic board with long range wireless communication and with mesh and crypto features.

gugol• 13 years ago

Half a mile is not a kilometer...

cupcake-unicorn• 13 years ago

So this is really great, with the range, but I'm still looking for a decent wifi range, low powered wireless tag network. The closest I can find is http://www.mytaglist.com/ , but I think the price is too high for the tags (used to be lower and then they jacked it up, on the hub as well), and they're creepily restrictive with their source code. The short lived GreenGoose looked like an option but is dead now. Anyone have any ideas of other solutions?

tehwalrus• 13 years ago

Such a shame the first device is US only (although I understand why, regulation, etc...)

I guess I'll have to wait until they hit a stretch goal for an EU design!

thisthis• 13 years ago

What happened to the claims of open source? Their github page ( https://github.com/flutterwireless ) is empty!

kbart• 13 years ago

Anyone knows what band is going to be used for wireless communication? And are there any plans for the certification in EU?

Flutter: $20 Wireless Arduino with 1 km range

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