Pandora Wi-Fi On 350kilobytes/s

[WizardStan]

I reserve the right to LOL when he tests it @ 950KB/s.

It's most definitely faster, probably closer to 1.5MB. It has a full USB stick for the wifi, generally intended for laptops and desktops which can supply the extra power needed, as opposed to the low power wifi chip embedded on the Pandora's board.

 

[rabidpoobear]

You know, if you were more developer/geek and less BS, pandora would have much more polished software by now. At least I'm trying. I'm just curious how pandora HW gets polished so that I can get it and hack on it. And don't worry, Touchbook's wifi is a lot better than that. I just don't have the numbers yet.

What's BS about me? I have a master's in computer science and I work for a software development company, and I write Pandora software for free... in fact a few guys on the forums are testing some of my software right now, as I don't even have a Pandora yet, so I can release it sooner. Not to mention having 800 posts, probably about 200 of which were actually useful to someone . What are YOU doing for the Pandora? Besides the obvious (making outrageous performance claims with no substance whatsoever.)

Also I was partially kidding. I expect the touchbook to get higher numbers, I just think you're being unreasonable/silly about 950KB/s being unacceptable.

 

[rabidpoobear]

I reserve the right to LOL when he tests it @ 950KB/s.

It's most definitely faster, probably closer to 1.5MB. It has a full USB stick for the wifi, generally intended for laptops and desktops which can supply the extra power needed, as opposed to the low power wifi chip embedded on the Pandora's board.

maybe we can just convince cz to attach a wifi stick to his Pandora then? Since it seems like wifi speed is more important than battery life anyway.

 

[rabidpoobear]

also, what do I personally have to do with the pandora software being polished? You realize I'm not one of the core dev's right? I'm just some random person on the forums giving you a hard time.

 

[urjaman]

I think that the problem is that people fail to understand that the WiFi chip in pandora is a mobile chip, designed to be power efficient. I think that the WiFi speed is within spec, as N900s (a big manufacturer MID) WiFi gives similar speed numbers.

 

[cz_jc]

What's BS about me? I have a master's in computer science and I work for a software development company, and I write Pandora software for free... in fact a few guys on the forums are testing some of my software right now, as I don't even have a Pandora yet, so I can release it sooner. Not to mention having 800 posts, probably about 200 of which were actually useful to someone . What are YOU doing for the Pandora? Besides the obvious (making outrageous performance claims with no substance whatsoever.)

Also I was partially kidding. I expect the touchbook to get higher numbers, I just think you're being unreasonable/silly about 950KB/s being unacceptable.

Well, sorry about me being careful what platform I choose to invest huge money into next. I just want different base than the Freerunner is. IE: thinks work proper and if they don't they get fixed. Yeah I picked the Touchbook because of it's wifi is in USB. I think SDIO is a very bad way to go. On FR, bluetooth PHY is on USB and it doesn't draw a lot either. And it's probably one of few things that works EXACTLY as intended (ie speeds close to 3/4 of max. USB 1.1 bandwith on PAN). I just don't like the community here so far - I asked a stupid question: is the wifi going to be fixed? And I'm already replying to several posts diverting focus.

EDIT: Friend just did a test, he got 2.5MB/s on a quick ssh file transfer test. So a full speed of his SD card. I suspect it's even faster

 

[WizardStan]

I asked a stupid question: is the wifi going to be fixed? And I'm already replying to several posts diverting focus.

Because the only answer we can give you is another question: is the wifi actually broken?
There aren't enough Pandoras in the hands of people that care enough to find out yet. All we as the community can do is give you best guesses, and the best guess is that it is not broken, this is simply a limit of the hardware, and that that is OK because 7.6Mbit really is quite fast, and can probably be made to go even faster. It cannot be compared to laptop wifi or even touchbook wifi because they generally have wifi chips built for speed, not power consumption.

 

[cz_jc]

I asked a stupid question: is the wifi going to be fixed? And I'm already replying to several posts diverting focus.

Because the only answer we can give you is another question: is the wifi actually broken?
There aren't enough Pandoras in the hands of people that care enough to find out yet. All we as the community can do is give you best guesses, and the best guess is that it is not broken, this is simply a limit of the hardware, and that that is OK because 7.6Mbit really is quite fast, and can probably be made to go even faster. It cannot be compared to laptop wifi or even touchbook wifi because they generally have wifi chips built for speed, not power consumption.

You see my concern though, right? A dev writes wifi doesn't work, then it works at 50KB/s. They remove a resistor and then it works at 500KB/s (and they don't even do a proper test). And now it's reported at 900KB/s. It's clearly underlooked. They didn't say the solution was final but I didn't see anything about wifi from that point on.
EDIT: to be completely precise as to what I want: I want a sense of finality about wifi: is it fixed or is it going to be looked into? hence the question. Also, I'm carefully looking at how the devs approach the problem. I don't wanna spend money again, find out something crucial is wrong and watch silently as yet another company disbands and the device is obsoleted again. I wanna settle down.

 

[Loonie]

Dammit, but what about all those bluray ISOs I'm planning to download to SD using Pandora?!

 

[rabidpoobear]

You see my concern though, right? A dev writes wifi doesn't work, then it works at 50KB/s. They remove a resistor and then it works at 500KB/s (and they don't even do a proper test). And now it's reported at 900KB/s. It's clearly underlooked. They didn't say the solution was final but I didn't see anything about wifi from that point on.
EDIT: to be completely precise as to what I want: I want a sense of finality about wifi: is it fixed or is it going to be looked into? hence the question. Also, I'm carefully looking at how the devs approach the problem. I don't wanna spend money again, find out something crucial is wrong and watch silently as yet another company disbands and the device is obsoleted again. I wanna settle down.

Why don't you just wait until WizardStan gets his unit & he can test it for you? It's not like you can get a first batch unit anyway, you're gonna be waiting a couple months either way.

[edit] although I'm still not quite sure what exactly you expect us to do... or say?

 

[cz_jc]

You see my concern though, right? A dev writes wifi doesn't work, then it works at 50KB/s. They remove a resistor and then it works at 500KB/s (and they don't even do a proper test). And now it's reported at 900KB/s. It's clearly underlooked. They didn't say the solution was final but I didn't see anything about wifi from that point on.
EDIT: to be completely precise as to what I want: I want a sense of finality about wifi: is it fixed or is it going to be looked into? hence the question. Also, I'm carefully looking at how the devs approach the problem. I don't wanna spend money again, find out something crucial is wrong and watch silently as yet another company disbands and the device is obsoleted again. I wanna settle down.

Why don't you just wait until WizardStan gets his unit & he can test it for you? It's not like you can get a first batch unit anyway, you're gonna be waiting a couple months either way.

[edit] although I'm still not quite sure what exactly you expect us to do... or say?

Yeah probably so. thanks. Well either something relevant or nothing, not mockery. I really wish pandora turns out well.

 

[WizardStan]

I just don't like the community here so far

When I thought you had a problem, I tried to help.
When you said you didn't have a problem, you were just concerned, I tried to suggest optimism and patience.
When you rejected optimism and patience I tried to offer potential explanation.
When you rejected explanation, I offered condolences.
I have tried to be accommodating, I don't know what else I can possibly tell you. If you have a problem with me, after having tried to explain to you why your fears may yet be unfounded, than I am seriously going to suggest that it may, in fact, be you that has the problem, I am sorry to say.

 

[rabidpoobear]

EDIT: to be completely precise as to what I want: I want a sense of finality about wifi: is it fixed or is it going to be looked into? hence the question. Also, I'm carefully looking at how the devs approach the problem. I don't wanna spend money again, find out something crucial is wrong and watch silently as yet another company disbands and the device is obsoleted again. I wanna settle down.

It seems like maybe you don't know a lot about the community here... we've been waiting for about 18 months for this thing to ship, and they've had our money the whole time. We all REALLY like the device. With all the work that's gone into this, they won't disband. Especially not on a device that hasn't even finished 1/4 of its first production run. they already have a ton of money invested in parts.

If I were you, since you're concerned, I wouldn't order from the first batch. The second batch may be a while off, but you should know by then whether the company's going to be profitable and continue making devices or not, and there will be 4000 people to complain about any issues, so you should know by then.

As for us 'diverting your focus', you came on here and gravedug a post right away and seem to not know that much about the project, so try to see it from our point of view. Appearing to not have done your research is not conducive to our desire to provide you with information.

 

[cz_jc]

EDIT: to be completely precise as to what I want: I want a sense of finality about wifi: is it fixed or is it going to be looked into? hence the question. Also, I'm carefully looking at how the devs approach the problem. I don't wanna spend money again, find out something crucial is wrong and watch silently as yet another company disbands and the device is obsoleted again. I wanna settle down.

It seems like maybe you don't know a lot about the community here... we've been waiting for about 18 months for this thing to ship, and they've had our money the whole time. We all REALLY like the device. With all the work that's gone into this, they won't disband. Especially not on a device that hasn't even finished 1/4 of its first production run. they already have a ton of money invested in parts.

If I were you, since you're concerned, I wouldn't order from the first batch. The second batch may be a while off, but you should know by then whether the company's going to be profitable and continue making devices or not, and there will be 4000 people to complain about any issues, so you should know by then.

As for us 'diverting your focus', you came on here and gravedug a post right away and seem to not know that much about the project, so try to see it from our point of view. Appearing to not have done your research is not conducive to our desire to provide you with information.

Is one month or so old really grave digging ? Ok sorry for not adhering to your rules then. I have been following pandora's site (and later developer blog too) since it was first announced. I considered it even before my Freerunner but I needed a phone too. I follow it a lot, just not the boards so sorry if I did something wrong. I just don't have money to dump into a thing I'm not sure I'll be able to use on everyday basis as a dev platform/notetaking gadget and occasional gaming device. I'm not wanting to do any bad blood here, I want openpandora to succeed as much as you do. It's just that the wifi issue wasn't commented on in the dev blog since it was first mentioned anymore. But you're probably right, I think when I have it lying at home, I can plug in a USB wifi stick (keep it near the charger) to get as fast wifi as possible for file transfer temporarily. I think I'm gonna preorder if noone finds any 'dealbreaker' issues.

 

[Creature XL]

What's BS about me? I have a master's in computer science and I work for a software development company, and I write Pandora software for free... in fact a few guys on the forums are testing some of my software right now, as I don't even have a Pandora yet, so I can release it sooner. Not to mention having 800 posts, probably about 200 of which were actually useful to someone . What are YOU doing for the Pandora? Besides the obvious (making outrageous performance claims with no substance whatsoever.)

Also I was partially kidding. I expect the touchbook to get higher numbers, I just think you're being unreasonable/silly about 950KB/s being unacceptable.

Well, sorry about me being careful what platform I choose to invest huge money into next. I just want different base than the Freerunner is. IE: thinks work proper and if they don't they get fixed. Yeah I picked the Touchbook because of it's wifi is in USB. I think SDIO is a very bad way to go. On FR, bluetooth PHY is on USB and it doesn't draw a lot either. And it's probably one of few things that works EXACTLY as intended (ie speeds close to 3/4 of max. USB 1.1 bandwith on PAN). I just don't like the community here so far - I asked a stupid question: is the wifi going to be fixed? And I'm already replying to several posts diverting focus.

EDIT: Friend just did a test, he got 2.5MB/s on a quick ssh file transfer test. So a full speed of his SD card. I suspect it's even faster

I reckon you are a software developer? I trust the decisions and abilities of the electrical engineer who build the board.
I am a SW dev as well (with a Master degree in informatics), so I wouldn't even dare to judge a decision by a HW guy.

Further, it is not surprising that BT is full speed on a mobile device, as it was designed fro mobile use, or at least for energy efficiency.
WiFi on the other hand was not AFAIK. So mobile chips cannot be expected to deliver the full speed. And I think you said 3MByte max, because you know that 54MBit/s is just a theoretical number. so 950Kb is 1/3 of the max speed and that in a mobile device is alrite for me.
It is enuff for streaming all kind of video content (except DVD AFAIK). And I will (hopefully) transfer 6GByte files very seldom

For the record, can some Pandora owner try a USB stick and tell u show fast this is? This would a solution for guys who would like to transfer big files often.

 

[rabidpoobear]

Is one month or so old really grave digging ? Ok sorry for not adhering to your rules then. I have been following pandora's site (and later developer blog too) since it was first announced. I considered it even before my Freerunner but I needed a phone too. I follow it a lot, just not the boards so sorry if I did something wrong. I just don't have money to dump into a thing I'm not sure I'll be able to use on everyday basis as a dev platform/notetaking gadget and occasional gaming device. I'm not wanting to do any bad blood here, I want openpandora to succeed as much as you do. It's just that the wifi issue wasn't commented on in the dev blog since it was first mentioned anymore. But you're probably right, I think when I have it lying at home, I can plug in a USB wifi stick (keep it near the charger) to get as fast wifi as possible for file transfer temporarily. I think I'm gonna preorder if noone finds any 'dealbreaker' issues.

Yeah believe it or not that actually is gravedigging on these forums, they're incredibly active. the front page is all posts in the last day or two, so reviving a thread from april probably bumped it like 15 pages or so. We have 177,883 replies on just this one section of the forum.

I understand not wanting to spend money. There are a couple hundred people with Pandoras so far though and I haven't heard any 'dealbreaker's. Some people are less happy than others but no one seems incredibly upset - and that's a REALLY good sign, because people who have broken things tend to be MUCH more vocal about it than people with working gadgets.

Also remember that the Pandora has USB host as well as slave, so you can just connect it to a hub on your desk if you need to transfer files to it, and that's USB 2.0 so it'll be way faster than WiFi anyway. And since it has host too, you can also plug in thumb drives or portable hard drives that may have media on them.

You have to have kind of a hard skin on this forum, people tend to be quite sarcastic and occasionally acidic, it comes from having nothing to talk about for 18 months and still being active on the forums just because we want one so much It gets better after the first couple posts though.

 

[joseluisjazz]

I just don't like the community here so far - I asked a stupid question: is the wifi going to be fixed? And I'm already replying to several posts diverting focus.

Hi cz_jc.

I'd like to give my thoughts about this sentence I quoted from you since I find the underlying psychology very interesting.

I feel the energy from your posts growing in harshness and tenseness right from the first one, as if you were unconsciously expecting confrontation. I don't wonder you decided you don't like the people in this forum since you approached to us in a defensive way. One usually will receive what he gave, so if one is short in kindness towards people then he wont receive that much either from them, and he will then infer that they are the ones being unreasonably harsh when in truth they're only reacting to the harshness they perceive, while everyone thinks the other is the one who started it. You'll react towards their harshness by being even more harsh and so on... Who started it really? It doesn't even matter a bit, and the only way out of the vicious circle is you dare to be more kind than what you think the other one deserves. Then, you'll start seeing the same very people differently. And no, it doesn't work waiting till the other gives the first step on the kindness path, because you'll be waiting forever without seeing the kindness that maybe it's already there waiting for you.

So welcome to the forum. And sorry for the off-topic

 

[rabidpoobear]

I just don't like the community here so far - I asked a stupid question: is the wifi going to be fixed? And I'm already replying to several posts diverting focus.

Hi cz_jc.
I'd like to give my thoughts about this sentence I quoted from you since I find the underlying psychology very interesting.
[snip]
So welcome to the forum. And sorry for the off-topic

Nice first post Jose.

Oh wait, you've been here awhile already.

 

[cz_jc]

I reckon you are a software developer? I trust the decisions and abilities of the electrical engineer who build the board.
I am a SW dev as well (with a Master degree in informatics), so I wouldn't even dare to judge a decision by a HW guy.

Further, it is not surprising that BT is full speed on a mobile device, as it was designed fro mobile use, or at least for energy efficiency.
WiFi on the other hand was not AFAIK. So mobile chips cannot be expected to deliver the full speed. And I think you said 3MByte max, because you know that 54MBit/s is just a theoretical number. so 950Kb is 1/3 of the max speed and that in a mobile device is alrite for me.
It is enuff for streaming all kind of video content (except DVD AFAIK). And I will (hopefully) transfer 6GByte files very seldom

For the record, can some Pandora owner try a USB stick and tell u show fast this is? This would a solution for guys who would like to transfer big files often.

Nah, I do ARM hw design as well but just as a hobby (I just finished high school). I don't have enough money to get into making BGA chips on board so I was limited to ARM926EJ-S so far (the best one I found in TQFP). I think I know enough to know what's involved in transfering wireless frames from one device to other. BTW. found out that the N900 does more with power management disabled: http://forums.internettablettalk.com/showthread.php?t=50860 . Can anyone with a pandora try iwconfig <wifi> power off? I'll try to find if it's further clamped by anything.
EDIT: sorry to the other posters, I'm not gonna feed the troll. Insert here whatever makes your egos happy and let's stick to the topic.
EDIT2: I'm trying to clone http://git.openpandora.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=pandora-wifi.git;a=summary , anyone knows git URL for it pls? I'm searchning but can't find

 

[cz_jc]

... I'll try to find if it's further clamped by anything.

OK looks like if wl1251_ps_set_mode hooks into wifi subsystem, power management is implemented. Could anyone with a pandora please post output of iwconfig ?
EDIT: with the wifi connected to something, I forgot to add