HomeMesh: A Low-Cost Indoor Wireless Mesh for Home Networking

Wi-Fi access technology has become popular in recent years. Many users nowadays use Wi-Fi to gain wireless access to the Internet from offices, public libraries, shopping malls, homes, and other places. However, current Wi-Fi deployment is limited to areas where wired LAN is available. Due to its relatively short transmission range in indoor environments (typically several tens of meters), Wi-Fi coverage needs to be extended significantly to full coverage of a certain area. The wireless mesh network (WMN) is a practical and effective solution. In this article we present HomeMesh, an off-the-shelf, simple, and cost-effective WMN for the indoor home environment. HomeMesh is based on simple protocols, implementable in normal notebooks or PCs, and is compatible with existing Wi-Fi APs and clients (i.e., no AP and client modifications). To achieve better end-to-end delay and throughput, HomeMesh dynamically selects its access path based on the ETX metric. We have implemented HomeMesh and conducted proof-of-concept experiments in an indoor environment. Our mesh solution is shown to be effective in improving Wi-Fi services.