Finding out distance between router and receiver?

Question

A general question: is it possible to retrieve information about how far away e.g. a computer is from a wifi-router. For instance I want to get data on my computer if I\'m 1

Answer 1

I would recommend a measuring line or just good-old-fashioned guesstimating.

There is no "simple" way to do it (complex ways may involve building "accurate" signal maps ahead of time or trying to fit a better equation which is still subject to anumber of the limitations with the naive rule) and the rule of thumb "1/r^2" is just that -- a general rule of thumb. On the other hand, perhaps there is some existing software that will show you your RSS strength and make the task feel accomplished :-)

You will find useful links if you google for "RSS signal distance". This kind of task seems quite a common topic in academia w.r.t. small wireless devices ("motes") as well and there have been some interesting approaches to this problem such as the fitting of secondary low-frequency acoustic sensors.