This document will help you get started with your Evaluation Kit. The goal is to get your devices up and running, establish the Meshmerize network and use it to communicate between the devices.
The Evaluation Kit is very easy to setup and requires only 3 steps :
The Meshmerize evaluation kit comes with 2 major components:
* Contact support@meshmerize.net if you can’t identify the gateway device
Hive is a cloud-based management tool that gives you a centralized view and control over the Meshmerize network. It provides you with an option to easily update network configuration, monitor network health, gather information about nodes, among other things. You can read more about Hive in its userguide.
You would receive your unique Hive URL and access credentials from our team. Visit the indicated URL and use these credentials to log into Hive.
If you’ve not received the credentials, please contact us at support@meshmerize.net
Once you’re logged in, please move on to the next step.
In the evaluation kit, one device is designated as the gateway device and all other nodes are configured to reach the internet over it. This configuration is necessary for the devices to reach the cloud instance of Hive.
Contact support@meshmerize.net if you can’t identify the gateway device
Connect the gateway device to the internet using the WAN socket. To boot the device, just connect to a power socket using the power adapter provided in the box. Make sure you have also plugged in the external Wifi Antennas securely.
You should now be able to see the gateway device inside of your Hive instance. Once you see this, please move on to the next step.
To boot the devices, just connect to a power socket using the power adapter provided in the box. Make sure you have also plugged in the external Wifi Antennas securely.
All devices are preconfigured to use Meshmerize on the same WiFi channel. They will automatically create/join the Meshmerize network using the best connections to reach each other.
Now, all the devices that have been powered on and connected will show up on Hive.
That’s IT! You have Meshmerize up and running now! Feel the magic and take Meshmerize out for a spin! Viel Spaß!
In order to test the connectivity provided by Meshmerize, you can the use terminal of any device connected to the Meshmerize network and use standard performance testing tools like ping, fping or iperf.
You can check Hive to find out each device’s IP address. You can also issue Ping commands from one device’s Hive control panel to other devices.
$ ping 10.1.0.Y
Note the ping latencies and success rates 🚀
The ping command is quite versatile and can do more than what’s above. You can use the ping command with a different packet interval, in order to test continuous connectivity. Try :
$ ping -i 0.2 -s 300 10.1.0.Y
Here, a new packet, 300 bytes long, is generated every 200ms.
Also, while doing this you should be able to see a spike in the airtime and other metrics shown in Hive.
Vary the parameters to suit your traffic requirements.
To connect your own computer to Meshmerize, use an Ethernet cable to connect your computer’s chosen Ethernet interface directly to the LAN socket of one of the Meshmerize devices. Note that this method does not work using the WAN socket.
As the LAN ports are bridged into the Meshmerize network, you can send traffic directly from your computer to any of the Meshmerize devices, or other computers connected to a Meshmerize device, similar to yours.
Quick connectivity tests can be done using ping. Open a terminal on your computer. You can now ping a Meshmerize device with the command
$ ping 10.1.0.Y
with Y being a number from a valid IP address that you have found in Hive.
On Linux machines, one can use the ping command with a lower packet interval, in order to test continuous connectivity.
$ ping -i 0.2 -s 300 10.1.0.Y
Here, a new packet, 300 bytes long, is generated every 200ms. Vary the parameters to suit your traffic requirements.
You can now play around with your test setup and also test Meshmerize’s resilience in mobile scenarios. As long as there are nodes in radio range, you can witness the seamless multipath handover mechanism of Meshmerize in action.