general FAQ

When you connect to an Access Point, your computer communicates only with the Access Point. Even if you send data to another computer in the same WiFi network, data travels to the AP first, then the AP repeats it in the air for the target machine. That mode is called Infrastructure Mode. All participants in the network should be in the range of the AP, and the whole network fails if the AP goes wrong.

On the other hand, there is Ad-Hoc Mode (also called IBSS), when all computers in that network are peers with equal rights, and send data directly to each other. Daihinia adds a bit of smartness to this mode by relaying packets from one computer to another computer by using a computer in the middle, but only in those cases when such a relaying is absolutely needed, i.e. when the first two computers are out of range for each other.

Devices do not allow apps to modify/improve their networking logic. Also, handling transit WiFi traffic on a handheld device would suck its battery in minutes, which renders the whole thing useless.

Apart from that, those devices' wifi chip microcode usually don't support IBSS mode at all; they are very stripped-down versions and don't have that logic in principle. Exceptions are so sparse that you can't hope for a wifi mesh net with them.

You have to install and configure the Daihinia driver in order to access the traffic in that network.

However, it might turn out that your meshing neighborhood is a local-only network and does not have access to the Internet at all; it may be created for some local purpose. Please ask your neighbors for details. You cannot dream of a neighborhood mesh network if you don't even say hello to your neighbors. ;)

Named after Daihinia brevipes -- a species of crickets, also known as camel cricket. Network packets hop over a Daihinia™ network much like these creatures jump.

See also: image on insectimages.org