wired vs wireless?

Planning a new display for 2016 and curious if anyone has gone down the wireless E1.31 path?

Currently there are quite a few solutions for this (especially liking the simplicity of the pixelstick on the DIYChristmas forums, which is essentially a breakout board for an inexpensive wifi module programmed to run a uni of pixels).

Although per universe it may end up costing roughly the same as a dedicated controller, the savings in cabling and signal repeaters (and time) over long runs make them quite attractive.

I'm especially thinking rooflines/eaves etc where cables would be typically difficult to run/affix in position.

Experiences,thoughts etc?

I have only used Wired connections , but the PI/FP also supports directly connected WS2801/2811 pixels

There is also the low cost PI zero that folks are already experimenting with to get FP working on - so it may pay to wait for some time and follow progress on the falcon christmas web site.

I run wireless. One PI is master and does audio, other three PIs are eaxh paired with a controller. With FPP 1.6 you could adjust/see controllers funny ng off wireless Pi. Ran whole season flawless on wireless. (It's also much less network traffic because everything is native on the PIs and the only network traffic is a single sync packet every 16 frames).

mararunr said:

I run wireless. One PI is master and does audio, other three PIs are eaxh paired with a controller. With FPP 1.6 you could adjust/see controllers funny ng off wireless Pi. Ran whole season flawless on wireless. (It's also much less network traffic because everything is native on the PIs and the only network traffic is a single sync packet every 16 frames).

Click to expand...

I did the same (but the wireless components were only between the FP instances and FP to internet) - I thought the question was wireless to a controller. My PI and BBB was still hardwired to the respective controllers.

mararunr said:

I run wireless. One PI is master and does audio, other three PIs are eaxh paired with a controller. With FPP 1.6 you could adjust/see controllers funny ng off wireless Pi. Ran whole season flawless on wireless. (It's also much less network traffic because everything is native on the PIs and the only network traffic is a single sync packet every 16 frames).

Click to expand...

Hi
Did you run a separate show wireless network or did you use your house wifi ? I am interested in your setup as i want to separate / sectionalise my display to reduce the chance of a catastrophic failure at one point impacting on the rest.


Cheers
Fing

Home network 192.168.1.x
Because of the way eth0 and wlan work on FPP, the F16v2 controllers were on 192.168.0.x and I set up static route on my router so I could see/adjust my controllers.
Never saw a lag at any time with over 10,000 pixels and two additional BBBs running P10 Tune To signs on same network.

After this year I have decided that wired is the only way to go where you expect large crowds. The issue with wireless is that when you get large crowds with their mobiles and wireless is that every wireless device will be 'pinging your wireless device' if you have too many wireless devices then this can slow down the wireless controller to the point where it drops out. 5ghz is better and ensuring you lock your network will help, but ive seen where there are several thousand people in close proximity where wireless seemed to struggle no matter what is done.
I don't think this should be too much of an issue for the DIYer though and wireless would bea good option.

Just a thought .. if you really wanted / needed wireless and had large crowds you can look into the 915mhz band, low bandwidth generally, but does have the bonus of non line of sight applications, I doubt DMX / E.131 needs a lot of bandwidth.


Getting gear in that band can be slightly difficult, i know UBNT do some but it's in the hundreds of dollars per device cost.

The ESPixelStick should work fine.. ive some a simular project in the testing stage..

But i have'nt tested it out on its own private wireless access point or measured the speed it use's..
But during the testing i did'nt notice any dropped packets in the ESPixelStick software..

The way i see it.. if your sending 20,000packets a minute.. some might get dropped, (but will the public realy notice)

It will be a setup an test for a couple of days.. on its own wifi access point..
But then what wifi access point would be best is the next question.

I know i will be testing it out on a couple of elements this year (low Key elements that is)

Ive used Komby wireless system for 2 years now an no issue's.. so who knows

The PC can be made to use these alternative wireless system easily but with the IOS then you don't have any form of hardwired network in to the device and they have done a lot to stop people making their own devices, you can use an adaptor to connect a network cable to an Ipad but then you cant connect your charger to it at the same time, so not a good solution. Still if given the choice I would use hardwired as it just eliminates any potential issues that could be introduced externally.