I'm kevin, an french agile software programmer, in final year of my master degree.
I discover recently the arduino interface...just awesome!
Why I'm here?! Just to say the famous "hello arduino world"! No, not just for that!
I found a lot of solutions to add the wifi capabilities to the arduino (wiShield, redfly, xbee) but all interfaces seem to require an existing wireless network (through a dhcp access point) or an ad-hoc connection.
Is there a wifi shield that allow to create wifi network and diffuse it?
Something like the TP-Link TL-WR703N can act as an Access Point to provide a wireless network. You can connect an arduino to it via an ethernet shield.
I was thinking about making a small 3G WIFI router also!! And i haven't got any luck on using arduino for that.
Check out my post here and please comment if you had any luck on your project! http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,108098.0.html
Using a little wireless router connected to the (staqndard) Adruino Ethernet shield has the big advantage of being able to use the Arduino Ethernet library and along with that a hoist of other libraries hat rely on the Ethernet library.
Depending on what WiFi shield you are looking at it may actually be cheaper. For example one WiFi shield which allows to wotk as an Access Point is the Arduino Hydrogen available at DIYsanbox.com. However, it costs $75 not including shipping. You can get the suggested TP-Link TL-WR703N for around $30 her in the US and the Arduino Ethernet shield is around $40.
I use a similar configuration using a Teensy++ ($26) and a WIZ512 WiFi module ($19) which makes it cheaper, for example, than using an Arduino Uno with the said WiFi Ethernet Shield.
