kuangeleven is working on a WL-520gU based Wi-Fi Radio based on my original project. Unlike my version, he’s using an Arduino Mini instead of an ATmega to control the user interface.
Asus wl-520gu Wi-Fi Radio & LCD Display
Originally uploaded by kuangeleven
As I mentioned last week, Adafruit Industries is hacking the Asus WL-520gU wireless router to talk to the Tweet-a-Watt.
Their hack is based on the work I did to create my Wifi Radio project.
Check out the video below to learn more about their cool hack!
Ladyada of Adafruit Industries created the Tweet-a-Watt to monitor energy usage in her apartment.
Each Tweet-a-Watt device contains some power monitoring electronics and an Xbee module. The Xbee modules relay energy usage data for each Tweet-a-Watt back to a single receiver, which collects the data.
In staying with the overall green theme of the project, Ladyada used an Asus Wl-520gU wireless router to control the receiver and collect data. This is the same router I used for my Wifi Radio project! The WL-520gU consumes ~5W and has enough horsepower to run the python data acquisition scripts while still acting as a cablemodem gateway.
More info:
Have you created a project or hack based on the Asus WL-520gU or WL-500gP Wireless Routers?
It doesn’t matter if it was inspired by my project or developed independently – I’d love to hear from you!
I’m putting together a talk for NOTACON and I’d like to feature as many projects as I can to spread the word about how powerful, flexible, and affordable these routers are, especially when coupled with a Linux package (DD-WRT, Tomato, OpenWrt, etc.) and USB devices.
If you’d like to have your project included in the talk, leave a comment or contact me directly.
Newegg.com has the ASUS WL-520gU Wireless Router on sale again for $19.99 after MIR. This is the cheapest I have seen it this year. You can do a lot of cool stuff with this device, aside from using it as intended – as a very low cost wireless router + print server, for less than half the cost of the famous Linksys WRT54GL.
Sale ends 12/31.