It’s a funny thing… you start something with the best of intentions, step away from it, and suddenly five years have gone by.
In the intervening years, a number of things have changed. Ayrstone is continuing to thrive and grow, and we have refreshed the product line with a new, far superior product using standard 802.11s meshing. Numerous other mesh networking products have appeared, from Eero and Google WiFi for large houses to a new offering from Ubiquiti that looks really good for smaller outdoor spaces (stadiums, rural homes, conference centers, etc.). Meshing WiFi is becoming mainstream, which makes this topic more urgent.
Some good new low-cost outdoor access points have also appeared in the market, from Amped, Engenius (I particularly like the ENS202EXT model),and Ubiquiti, although it looks like their outdoor access points are being supplanted by their new mesh products, which is probably just as well.
Next I’ll take up that post I was starting back when about do-it-yourself approaches to farm networking.