
Flutter: $20 Wireless Arduino with 1 km range - trafnar
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2021474419/flutter-20-wireless-arduino-with-half-mile-1km-ran
======
chrissnell
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.

~~~
ohazi
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](http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/cc1101.pdf)

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

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

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

~~~
ohazi
_Sigh_

I was wondering whether I'd get called out for omitting this. You're right, of
course. :-)

Well, you're partially right (and it's a bit of a mess, which is why I left it
out in the first place). Yes, increasing the data rate reduces range when all
else is equal. The carrier frequency doesn't actually matter. The bandwidth
does matter, but not in the way that you'd expect. Increasing your channel
bandwidth actually _increases_ your range when your receiver is noise limited
(which is necessarily the case when you're making the range/bitrate trade-
off). But the "power" term in the standard formulas assumes you're measuring
the total power in your band (not carrier power). So you can't reap the
benefit of doubling your bandwidth without also doubling your transmit power
(unless you're using a true spread spectrum transceiver, which is a different
beast).

There are plenty of other factors, but when you're thinking about these
things, you ultimately want to form an intuition for "what is the minimum
energy per bit needed to make my receiver happy?" and "how much transmit power
do I need to deliver that energy, given a specific antenna and desired range?"
[1]. This analysis lets you ignore the specifics (modulation technique,
multiple carriers, multiple antennas, spread spectrum, etc) that make it
difficult to compare this TI radio and your 802.11n card, but still gives you
a very accurate result.

My original point (which still stands) is that you can't feasibly build a 1
kbps transceiver with 16 mW transmit power and a two inch monopole antenna and
expect to get anywhere near half a km of range with the TI radio. It simply
isn't sensitive enough.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eb/N0](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eb/N0)

(As an aside, Eb/N0 was one of those things that I found incredibly confusing
when I first learned about it in a communication theory class - I recall
several homework assignments where we had to solve for Eb/N0 symbolically for
various theoretical transceivers. I only realized how useful it was after
building real radios and plugging in actual numbers. Once you get the hang of
it, it becomes a very good bullshit detector for "overly optimistic" range,
bitrate, and power trade-offs that doesn't require spending hours in front of
a simulator.)

~~~
TaylorAlexander
"you can't feasibly build a 1 kbps transceiver with 16 mW transmit power and a
two inch monopole antenna and expect to get anywhere near half a km of range
with the TI radio"

I mean... you say that, but we did, and we're not doing anything special, I
just set two android phones to volley their GPS position over USB to the
board, send it over radio, and calculate the distance on the other end. I then
verified the calculations manually using google earth and landmarks.

Here's what texas instruments has to say [1] about the radio: "You can achieve
a range of several km with the CC1101 without any problems (line of sight).
The output power can be programmed up to 12dBm and the sensitivity level on
the receiver is dependent on the programmed baud rate. With a sensitivity of
-112dBm and an output power of 12dBm, 915MHz ; the expected range with Friis
equation adapted to take into account the height from the ground would be
approx 3km."

We're being advised by Earl McCune, a serious Silicon Valley Radio expert
(google him, he's awesome), and he donated some of his time to help test the
board with his nice Agilent RF stuff. He was impressed with the performance of
this little chip, and was also impressed that my layout nearly perfectly
matches the TI reference design.

[1]
[http://e2e.ti.com/support/low_power_rf/f/155/t/15984.aspx](http://e2e.ti.com/support/low_power_rf/f/155/t/15984.aspx)

~~~
ohazi
Wait, so you're _not_ using the additional TI power amp?

Well shit... Now you have my attention. I obviously missed something if I was
off by two orders of magnitude. I'll take a closer look when I have some more
time.

In the meantime, I would strongly suggest adding as many technical details to
the kickstarter page as you can (output power, for starters. A (rough)
schematic would be fantastic).

Edit: Actually, do you have any specs on the antennas you've tested?

~~~
kbaker
Back of the envelope, and assuming their design is the same like their board
pictures posted on the kickstarter page (i.e. no PA, all RF done inside the
chip):

The CC1200 puts out 14 dBm [1]. Receive Sensitivity from the datasheet at 915
MHz is -122 dBm @ 1200 baud, -110 dBm @ 50 kbps, and -97 dBm @ 500 kbps. Very
good overall. (all these values are from the datasheet.)

Free space ideal path loss at 915 MHz and 1 km is -91.7 dB [2]. This gives an
ideal budget of 44 dB. Toss in some antenna gain and you should have plenty to
play around with for losses in the passives, connectors, antenna alignment,
etc. 3 km is pushing it, with another 10 dB of path loss. So I would think 1
kilometer is easily attainable at 1200 baud with this chip.

However, things start to change with FCC compliance... 15.249 devices (a lot
less limitations, including fixed frequency) can transmit at max -1 dBm. [3]
So the compliant device at 50 kbps, -1 dBm, 1 km has 15 dB ideal budget, right
on the edge of working. 500 kbps is probably not going to happen at 1 km
except in perfect conditions.

So now you want to use hopping as a 15.247 device to get the limit up to 30
dBm/1 Watt. This chip doesn't support DSSS, so we are frequency hopping. This
limits us to a channel bandwidth of 500 kHz, so you can't run at high speeds -
maybe 200 kbps or so? Downside is you are spending some time hopping and
waiting for PLLs to stabilize, there is a chance for interference on certain
frequencies resulting in periodic dropouts until you hop to the next
frequency, and the software side/hopping coordination is tons more complex.
But you would be able to communicate pretty far!

Also, note that RF is very unfriendly and link budgets can easily be used up
with obstacles in the way, walls, trees, not to mention pesky humans etc.

Hopefully this clarifies some things? Please let me know as well if I am off
anywhere, I know a little about this but it is also late...

[1] [http://www.ti.com/product/cc1200](http://www.ti.com/product/cc1200) (see
datasheet) [2]
[http://www.qsl.net/pa2ohh/jsffield.htm](http://www.qsl.net/pa2ohh/jsffield.htm)
[3] [http://rfcalculator.mobi/convert-
dbuv-3m.html](http://rfcalculator.mobi/convert-dbuv-3m.html), 15.249 allows 50
mV/m @ 3m = 93.89 dbuV/m @ 3m = -1.34 dBm EIRP. [4] FCC 15.247 & 15.249

------
jws
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.

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

~~~
stbtrax
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.

------
noonespecial
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
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.flutterwireless.com/press.html)

[http://www.ti.com/product/cc1101](http://www.ti.com/product/cc1101)
[http://www.ti.com/product/cc1200](http://www.ti.com/product/cc1200)

~~~
noonespecial
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.

~~~
rauar
still waiting for chips which do DSSS ([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-
sequence_spread_spectr...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-
sequence_spread_spectrum) ).

~~~
TaylorAlexander
We can do DSSS, but our radio engineer (google Earl McCune) advised us that
FHSS, while in some ways more complex (actually he just said it's tricker to
design "right", which I'm fine with), will be vastly better for rejecting
interference and intentional blocking.

~~~
rauar
interesting. does he mean frequency hopping ? if yes then i would not
immediately agree however...

edit: i'm not a radio engineer just saying based on practical experience.

edit2: just googled . congrats on having this guy on your team.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Thanks! He's a serious silicon valley radio expert. He actually was a member
of the homebrew computer club and brushed shoulders with Woz and Jobs before
spending the rest of his career advancing radio in silicon valley. He helped
lab test my designs, and he's really been an asset in verifying that what I
_think_ I did right, I actually did (Texas Instruments has some really great
reference material). We experimentally verified on his equipment that my
design basically exactly matches the performance characteristics of TI's
reference design, and one of our RF component suppliers offers a $600 service
where they put your device in their RF chamber to test emissions, which the
engineer told me is a much better deal than you'd normally get at that price,
but they only do it to help customers get off the ground. Before launch we
spent a lot of time speaking to a lot of other professionals and kickstarter
folk who have gone through the certification process, and it sounds like it's
going to be manageable, especially with Earl McCune's help! I've done all the
work on my own, but having a reliable expert is extremely critical in making
sure the hardware will not be a problem!

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

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

------
eterm
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.

~~~
Someone
Have you read the FAQ?
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2021474419/flutter-20-wi...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2021474419/flutter-20-wireless-
arduino-with-half-mile-1km-ran#project_faq_66117):

 _" 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!"_

~~~
eterm
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.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Eeek, good catch! Now that the level has backers I can't change it, but we are
working on a better plan for international backers, and I will contact
Kickstarter and see if they can open up the shipping option on that reward!
I'll post an update for international backers soon!

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

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

~~~
KaiserPro
and comes with an excellent set of libraries.

------
Sparverius
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.

~~~
juliusdeane
They're saying max 1.2Mbps on the press page

[http://www.flutterwireless.com/press.html](http://www.flutterwireless.com/press.html)

~~~
TaylorAlexander
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!

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

~~~
TaylorAlexander
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.

------
AnIrishDuck
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...](http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-8740-CryptoAuth-
ATSHA204-Datasheet.pdf)

~~~
TaylorAlexander
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.

~~~
AnIrishDuck
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authenticated_encryption)
2\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_attack](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_attack)
3\. [http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto-
challenges/](http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto-challenges/)

------
songgao
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
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://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/technology/channel/deployment/guide/Channel.html)

[http://blog.saddey.net/2007/07/08/wifi-insights-why-you-
shou...](http://blog.saddey.net/2007/07/08/wifi-insights-why-you-should-avoid-
using-channels-other-than-1-6-11-and-14-like-the-plague/)

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

------
TaylorAlexander
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](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FJu1eL_dYs)

Please ask me anything!

~~~
AsymetricCom
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.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
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! :)

------
PStamatiou
I want to buy a bunch and build an alternate internet mesh network a la
[https://twitter.com/Stammy/status/372450697742008322](https://twitter.com/Stammy/status/372450697742008322)

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

------
cupcake-unicorn
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/](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?

------
simonebrunozzi
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/](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.

~~~
Ecio78
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.

------
devindotcom
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!

------
biturd
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?

~~~
lutusp
Much higher radio power level.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
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.

~~~
lutusp
> actually not at all, we have less TX power than most wifi devices.

Another post in this thread says 16 mw, compared to about 50 mw for an 802.11
class device, so that's rather low and I'm somewhat surprised by the range
claims. I suspect the chosen antennas play an important part.

> The data rate is inversely proportional to range, as is the frequency.

Unless I have misunderstood the above sentence, it implies that the range
increase as the frequency drops. In a word, no, because among other things,
thermal noise increases as frequency drops. A low data rate will buy you more
range, but range doesn't increase as frequency drops.

> This gets us range without blasting people with radio or having trouble with
> the FCC.

Maybe. It turns out that 915 MHz is a pretty busy area of the spectrum in many
places -- successful communication might be harder in practice than the ideal
case.

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

[https://www.sparkdevices.com/](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....

~~~
TaylorAlexander
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).

------
outside1234
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.

------
xSwag
1 half mile = 0.804672 kilometres

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

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

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

------
swamp40
How come it says $20 in the title, then doesn't let you buy anything for $20?

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

~~~
salemh
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."

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

------
tehwalrus
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!

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

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

~~~
TaylorAlexander
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.

~~~
bnejad
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.

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

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

~~~
lcasela
Deff.

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

~~~
jjsz
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?

~~~
kgmpers
I'd give $100 to the kickstarter that has a meshnet node in a box that's
basically plug and play.

~~~
benkillin
look at project byzantium - depends on a regular computer to use or a
raspberry pi but the whole goal of the project is "plug and play" software
that will allow you to at the push of a few buttons get an ad-hoc wifi mesh
set up.

[http://project-byzantium.org/](http://project-byzantium.org/)

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

~~~
TaylorAlexander
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?

------
nathan_f77
Perfect. Exactly what I've needed for a lot of project ideas.

------
gdc
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.

------
SilliMon
What band is it using?

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

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

------
gugol
Half a mile is not a kilometer...

