Can you turn your phone into a wireless repeater? : Android

Can you turn your phone into a wireless repeater? : Android

Can you turn your phone into a wireless repeater?

13 points submitted 2 months ago by faded_giant

Options

all 22 comments

garbonz0 1 point 2 months ago

I believe you would need two antennas for this.

neuromit 1 point 2 months ago

could you do it with two phones tethered together via wifi?

lolnic 1 point 2 months ago

They would both be using their antennas accessing the wifi. You could possibly do it via bluetooth in some way.

neuromit 1 point 2 months ago

except most phones have separate antennas for wifi and cellular

lolnic 1 point 2 months ago

The two phones connected together via wifi would both need to be using their wifi antennas to connect to each other, leaving no wifi antenna for repeating.

»continue this thread

strolls 6 points 2 months ago

Not necessarily. I believe there are some router chipsets that under OpenWRT can be client on one SSID, master on another SSID and "repeat" in this way. EDIT: each SSID is a separate VAP ("virtual access point") on the same physical interface - only one radio/antenna needed. Much more common is WDS.

But this is academic - it's prolly not supported by the Android drivers, the OP doesn't tell us which phone he has, and you prolly wouldn't want to do this anyway, if you were clueful and understood the problem.

elmicha 1 point 2 months ago

Yes, and also you don't need two antennas for WDS. My Fritzbox 3131 has only one antenna and can do WDS.

big-o-notation 1 point 2 months ago

I think that will work (HW-wise) as long as the two SSIDs are on the same channel. As you say, driver support for this might be missing.

r00x 2 points 2 months ago

I don't think so, just the throughput would be halved.

ModernRonin 1 point 2 months ago

Even if it's possible, I doubt the battery would last more than an hour. WiFi is a very battery hungry protocol. Are you sure you don't want to just buy a D-Link wireless repeater that will have much stronger signal strength?

joazito 6 points 2 months ago

He could plug it in.

ModernRonin 1 point 2 months ago

At which point it'd still be way weaker than a D-Link repeater.

...still not seeing the point here.

joazito 1 point 2 months ago

I'm not arguing with that.

greatjobmatt 1 point 2 months ago

I want this.

Dax420 1 point 2 months ago

Mmmm, mesh routing....

drools

Ymodem-G 1 point 2 months ago

I'm curious why you would need a wireless repeater when many Android phones have a mobile Access Point?

Not trolling, just wondering

faded_giant [S] 1 point 2 months ago

I was just curious. I have an evo btw.

riggs32 1 point 2 months ago

I thought it was a cool idea. the battery issue wouldn't matter since this would mostly be used at home, and you're phone could easily be plugged in. as for people saying it wouldn't be as good as a router, who cares? Things like this are what make android phones so amazing.

Ymodem-G 1 point 2 months ago

To answer your original question, there is probably no reason why it couldn't be used as one. Someone would only need to create an application to allow it. Wireless repeaters are typically less stable/reliable than access points or even wireless bridges.

The range on the mobile AP on my galaxy is probably 50 to 70% of the range of a Linksys WAP200, so it should have the range required.

arabbay 2 points 2 months ago

If you have windows 7 you can install conectify and do this, so if android has the right drivers someone could probably do it.

faded_giant [S] 1 point 2 months ago

I cant thank you enough.