Hello all, I just wanted your opinion on the new vivid hosting radios. As someone who had a hard time setting them up and configuring them, I personally think that they could be improved upon or at least have more consistent and clear documentation provided considering the fact that most people aren’t familiar with networking and IP addresses. Maybe you feel like they are easier/ better than the open mesh. Share your thoughts!
The configuration & setup where so much easier than using the radio imaging tool FIRST has been limping along for the last 12 years. Having a web interface to load firmware & change team info is much easier than trying to get the radio imaging tool to see and program the radio.
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I have been walking a freshman team member through the process for the new radios, and we’ve now set up three (one as an AP, two as robot radios). I find that it has significantly fewer gremlins than the old imaging tool – that is, if you have a working network adapter, it’s definitely possible – whereas the old radio imaging tool sometimes just refused to work on some computers and the troubleshooting steps didn’t usually help, especially when using a USB ethernet adapter.
That said, I find the need to manually change IP addresses multiple times tiresome, especially with how many clicks it takes to do it under Windows, and the annoying entry boxes. I don’t know if this is supposed to work with DHCP, but we tried that a few times, and it just never did. Maybe it was the USB ethernet adapter? I just appreciate that the old radio config utility handled the multiple, predictable IP address changes for you – the way a computer should.
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Which documentation have you been looking at?
Can you be much more specific about what exactly you suggest that should change? I think many people would be in favor of more “consistent and clear” documentation but with the vagueness of your comments it is very hard to know what to improve (and if it needs to be improved).
In the “laptop direct to VH-109” section it states that a 6e capable laptop can communicate directly but then it still says you need 2 radios. Also the configuration diagram for this method isn’t shown and just says “TODO”. So we’re confused here. We have the firepower on the laptop, … do we need multiple radios to talk to 1 thing? And if so, why?
The FCC is why you need two radios. Under the 6GHz Wi-Fi rules, the radio on the robot cannot be the access point, and neither can your laptop, so you need a not battery powered radio to be the AP, and then a radio on the robot.
I may be slightly biased but I think (especially newer) teams should be looking at the WPILib docs initially as they were written with a focus on keeping things simple for teams.
The laptop to VH-109 section is a bit misleading IMO but is meant to show that you can connect wirelessly to the AP but as mentioned above we are forced to have that AP off robot.
I wasn’t really referring to wpilib documentation but rather documentation from the vivid hosting website. I didn’t actually know that there was wpilib documentation until a few days ago. Even then looking at it now, I had to follow different steps. I had to set the dns and configure a static ip adress on my computer for the radio before anything else. Even then radio.local couldn’t be reached and it worked by typing in the ip of the radio into a web browser. I’m not saying it’s like this for other teams, maybe we just had a weird experience. I just wanted to know if it was just us or if other teams have been having the same issues.
personally, i am proficient with these kinds of devices, and the documentation is a dream and a HUGE step up from prior. the various different ways to set up the radio are useful for some teams’ practice setups. the old config tool was literally on its last legs and it was super inconsistent, while the new webpage is miles better.
however, i feel like the documentation makes it harder for those who arent too experienced with these kinds of devices. there is no official setup video (other than the WCP video which is kind of fast and missing the configuration URL) and i can understand how someone may get confused reading this:
the mismatched names for the modes (Robot Radio Mode vs Team Client/STA Mode, Access Point Mode/Team Access Point Mode) could be made clearer by just calling it “At Home” and “Competition” and defining those terms in the docs as “Station Mode” and “Access Point Mode”. also, i dont think that page makes it clear that “Team Client/STA Mode” is only needed if you have a second radio. if there was a “Get Started” or “Basic Setup” guide that showed how to do the dead simple setup of 2.4ghz, one radio only, that would reduce the amount of confusion i think. then later, if teams would like to buy another and use the 6ghz dual radio setup, they can do so and use the existing docs for that.
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