The wired Ethernet connectivity works out of the box with the Freescale RIoT board :-). But to make it more ‘IoT’ capable, a WiFi connection would be a big plus. The element14 site did not tell which WiFi dongles are supported, and a thread in the element14 forum on that topic has not really provided much information. With some risks I decided to order the Wi-Pi WiFi dongle which seems to be popular in the Raspberry Pi community (thus that Wi-Pi name?). And as I anyway have a Raspy, my thinking was that if it does not work with the RIoT board, I still can use it with the Raspy 🙂
Wi-Pi WiFi with the RIoT Board
The Wi-Pi WiFi USB dongle is available from multiple sources, including Farnell (part number 2133900). The dongle comes in a tiny card box:
Wi-Pi with RIoT Board
The USB dongle is around 35 mm long so it does not much space:
Wi-Pi WiFi Dongle
Need to Update Android
I was not able to get the Wi-Pi working with the original Android image (SVN2515) on the board. With installing SVN2597 the Wi-Pi dongle worked 🙂
Configuration
To configure the Wi-Pi, go to the Android settings:
Android Settings
Then turn Wi-Fi on:
Enable WiFi
💡 If (hopefully!) using any encryption/WPA/etc, you are prompted to enter the password. It worked fine for my WPA2 wireless access point.
The blue LED on the dongle shows that it has connected to the network:
Wi-Pi Dongle Connected to the Network
Summary
With the Wi-Pi dongle I have now WiFi capability for the RIoT board, and it works out of the box if using the latest Android version. Another reason to load the latest Android firmware to the RIoT board ;-).
Happy WiFing 🙂
Hi Erick,
It’s very good that you are starting to share your knowledge about the RIoT as information is scarce, I noticed that you were using a HDMI to DVI adapter in one photo in this post. Do you find something that worked? I tried some HDMI to VGA with no luck and gave up, but seems you were in DVI with more success. What is the model you used?
Thanks for this blog, when I want to know something on Freescale, this is my first stop!!
Keep up the good work!
Marco
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Hi Marco,
thanks! Yes, I realized too that information is very scarce, so I really hope that with sharing information over time the community can benefit.
As for the adapter: at the university I have a monitor with HDMI, so no adapter needed. At home I have only DVI. That adapter shown in the picture works for me, but I do not know the brand. I believe it came with the TWR-MPC5125 board I used a while back (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=TWR-MPC5125&tid=m32TWR). I have used that adapte sucessfully with my Raspberry-Pi as well. So I guess if you would buy one which works with the Raspy, you should be in good shape.
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Hi there, thanks for article. I’m interessted on WIPI FCC ID: OYR-COMFAST88. Do you happen to know eventually where can i buy it ?. Thanks
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Is this not the normal Wi-Pi dongle? It is sold by many distributors (just search the web for it).
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