US $6.99 Micro Wifi Dongle for Pandora

[dgame]

I bought three of these USB WiFi Wireless Network 150Mbps 802.11N Internet Adapters of off eBay.


They work with the Pandora without installing any additional software:





Just plug and play.


It has the Realtek8188CU chipset and uses the Pandora's rtl8192cu Wifi Driver.


They are $6.99 each with free shipping or 3 for $20.00 with free shipping.


I am not affiliated with the seller.


http://www.ebay.com/...r-/180757533107


PS: I also ordered a less expensive ($5.94) Micro WiFi Dongle from eBay to see if it works with Pandora.


Will post results when I get it.


I don't need this many WiFi Dongles for the Pandora. I got the extras to network some desktop computers.

 

[renegadechic]

how is their performance compared to the built in wifi when connected?

 

[mindlord]

The main bottleneck for the Pandora's onboard wifi is the SDIO connection it uses. If you connect via a usb wifi enabled chip you will get full speed out of it. The main drawback is power consumption. You're likely to half the battery life of your Pandora with one of these plugged in.

 

[DaMummy]

whats the range on this thing?


Edit: heres a link to international users, also has more info, and people mention the range is around 10m


http://dx.com/ultra-...k-adapter-48166


some more with same chipset


http://dx.com/comfas...-adapter-114400


http://dx.com/150mbp...er-black-103767

 

[dgame]

I have an 802.11 G setup so the built in WiFi and USB Dongle the USB Dongle perform about the same on the Internet.


With a slight edge going to the USB Dongle for more consistently maintaining the highest speeds my current Internet service is capable of.


Online the built in WiFi fluctuates between 65KB and 200KB and the USB Dongle mostly stays in the 160K to 200K range.


This is limited by the speed of my Internet access.


The USB Dongle is Wireless N so it should be able to take advantage of the newer standard.


I don’t know how accurate the Battery meter is on the taskbar but when alternating between the built in WiFi and USB Dongle the USB Dongle appears to use less power.


Generally, the Time Remaining on the taskbar is less with the built in WiFi enabled than it is with the USB Dongle plugged in.


9:40 to 7:18 battery time remaining with built-in Wifi downloading a file.


9:30 to 8:26 battery time remaining with USB Dongle downloading a file.

 

[gadgetoid]

I've not had much luck out-of-the-box with Wifi Dongles.


The one I got today uses the Realtek 8176 chipset, which is picked up by rtl8192cu, successfully sees networks, but will not connect to any of them for reasons I can't quite fathom or identify.


My testing and occasional driver compiling adventure continues.

 

[teknotoast]

Forgive me for sounding like an utter noob when it comes to these things, but if the OP has internal WiFi, why resort to a dongle?

 

[crow_riot]

Forgive me for sounding like an utter noob when it comes to these things, but if the OP has internal WiFi, why resort to a dongle?

there are issues with the internal wifi module - some people dont get a connection at all, some dont get the speed they want to have and some more. but these are the main reasons to use an external wifi dongle

 

[Prometheus]

Forgive me for sounding like an utter noob when it comes to these things, but if the OP has internal WiFi, why resort to a dongle?

The internal WiFi module has its limits, for one thing (both speed-wise, and in what sort of networks it can connect to), and some folks also have routers with which it has issues working correctly.


EDIT: Ninja'd. h34r:

 

[gadgetoid]

Just opened up my Pandora at home, and the WiFi dongle that was giving me trouble in the office "Just Works"


Ahhh, Linux WiFi is a bloody minefield and no mistake!

 

[fahrstuhl]

The main drawback is power consumption. You're likely to half the battery life of your Pandora with one of these plugged in.

Actually it's not that bad, at least not with my Belkin micro which runs with the same driver. I still get around 10h of constant use out of it, at least that's what the battery meter's reporting. On the other hand this might already be halved battery live... But it's one I can live with, especially because my wifi dongle isn't just faster bandwidth-wise but also takes just a few seconds to connect, similar to modern smartphones. This even works with the new suspend to ram in kernel 3.2.1 if you modify the suspend script a little to make it unload the driver before suspending and reloading it after waking up.

 

[gadgetoid]

This even works with the new suspend to ram in kernel 3.2.1 if you modify the suspend script a little to make it unload the driver before suspending and reloading it after waking up.

Interesting, are you loading and unloading the ehci module, too? Presumably you must be.


I've noticed no significant adverse effect on battery life thus far, and a very definitely improved network speed. About 2mm of the USB plug sticks out on my adaptor, though, so it's not as flush as I'd like. I guess the Pandora USB port isn't deep enough.

 

[fahrstuhl]

This even works with the new suspend to ram in kernel 3.2.1 if you modify the suspend script a little to make it unload the driver before suspending and reloading it after waking up.

Interesting, are you loading and unloading the ehci module, too? Presumably you must be.

No I'm not, the script actually does that on its own already.

 

[Ian J]

The main drawback is power consumption. You're likely to half the battery life of your Pandora with one of these plugged in.

Actually it's not that bad, at least not with my Belkin micro which runs with the same driver. I still get around 10h of constant use out of it, at least that's what the battery meter's reporting. On the other hand this might already be halved battery live... But it's one I can live with, especially because my wifi dongle isn't just faster bandwidth-wise but also takes just a few seconds to connect, similar to modern smartphones. This even works with the new suspend to ram in kernel 3.2.1 if you modify the suspend script a little to make it unload the driver before suspending and reloading it after waking up.

I concur, I have the Belkin Micro Dongle and my battery is showing 91% with 10:26 hours remaining.


My transfers are rock solid at 800k which is the limit of my connection.


They are well worth the cash, I looked around at cheaper options but decided to spend the extra to get something I knew would work.

 

[Orion4874]

The 300mbps adapters haven't gotten down quite this small yet have they? I've searched around but these micro adapters are always 150.

 

[DaMummy]

what kind of sd cards are you using if you need 300mbps writes?

 

[uccloruman]

Does someone know a good site where i can buy this Belkin Micro Dongle thingy Dont say google is your best friend :rolleyes:


Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[Ian J]

I just purchased from Amazon UK.

 

[Orion4874]

what kind of sd cards are you using if you need 300mbps writes?

I meant just for general Web surfing.

 

[Binky]

I just purchased from Amazon UK.

Same here, also got mini-USB-A to USB-A adapter.