ESP32 WiFi Range Testing - 10km using Directional Antenna

How to send arbitrary data by exploiting a function in ESP32's WiFi Stack: github.com/Jei...
Consumer grade WiFi hardware being able to decode down to "femtowatts" of signal strength might be a bit exaggerated, but e.g. the USB WiFi adaptor in this video has a receiver sensitivity of -99dBm @1Mbps which is approx. 100fW. If we count the directional antenna as part of the receiver and add the antenna gain to that figure (this part of the calculation is somewhat disputable), we get the less-than-femtowatts mentioned in the video.
English subtitles for this videos are available, translations are always welcome!
The camera recording code is based on igrr's esp32-cam-demo: github.com/igr...
More speifically, I'm making use of the modified version by Oitzu with OV2640 JPEG support: github.com/Oit...
The animations in this video were created using 3blue1brown's amazing manim software (github.com/3b1.... Check out some of his mathematical videos on his channel: / 3blue1brown
If you like animated math videos, this video of mine might also be of interest to you: • How to make the Minecr...

[@reps]

Awesome! I am currently tinkering with an ESP32 + Bluetooth Low Energy and am now very happy that I bought a few more than I actually need. Looks very promising and isn't even really 'done' yet.

[@b5a5m5]

I find it funny that as I read that I could hear marcoreps saying it. I must be a huge fanboy.

[@king-well-kong]

holy shit marco. youre walking around youtube from german to swiss 😂

[@beedslolkuntus2070]

Bayaqub Mlg LOL, I DIDNT EVEN KNOW MARCO BUT WHEN I CLICKED THE CHANNEL I WAS SUBSCRIBED!!! X

[@WalterMadrassa]

Also the conditions are really favourable because transmitter is on the hill. If terrain was flat, both receiver and transmitter would need to be raised high to to ensure the Fresnel zone is not obstructed. By the way it is possible to play with the polarisation of the signal by turning antennas 90 degrees to enhance the signal quality.

[@mostlymessingabout]

The Guy with the swiss accent has gone Back to the Future

[@milagritosperalta2811]

is not the same guy, maybe german accent.. but anyway both are sharing good useful info.

[@abicus3502]

The country he is filming in is called Ukraine, by the way. I live in it. До речі, раїна, у якій він записує - це Україна. Я у ній живу.

[@holetoanotheruniverse4690]

@@abicus3502 Hohenneuffen is in Germany about 25km away from me... So this video is filmed in germany i guess...

[@Stefan54]

@Naranja Vape Reviews Who hurt you? Stop being so toxic

[@samuelgonzalez317]

@Naranja Vape Reviews Комерад, Украина - это красивая интересная страна.

[@cmg8574]

5 years later of this video being released I'm still amazed. Future is not old man.

[@prof.eduardomorais6283]

What a good test! That's a huge distance. Keep sharing with us your projects with Esp32.

[@user-gr6hv5nq3c]

Woow outstanding results!!! You did great job man, now I want to explore this board as well. Thank you!

[@AdrianWolf_in_TO]

This was very informative. Thank You! Just getting started with LoRa and will bookmark and favourite this vid.

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh]

Fun fact. You can split the transmit and receive signals out to different antennas. Use a higher gain antenna for rx and a lower gain for tx. Battabing butta bang, Bidirectional long range communication.

[@p__--]

zyxwvutsrqponmlkh may it be possible??

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh]

@@p__-- It's not just possible, its used in industry all the time. www.ui.com/airfiber/airfiber24-hd/

[@fredlllll]

a video full of information. very nice. ive tinkered with 433 Mhz modules, but never came across all these formulas, which wouldve helped me a great deal

[@kochumvk]

I have no business sending any signal over wifi to such distance. But boy, the video is awesome.

[@edgarmondragon4708]

Yes, wifi protocol needs a package acknowledge in a time slot equivalent to the time the waves travel 100m, otherwise, the protocol assumes the packages was lost. So it is not technically possible to increase the distance of wifi without changing or ignoring this parameter. The use of promiscuous mode is a clever workaround for a unidirectional transmission, though.

[@hellterminator]

What you're saying means you'd need to send an acknowledgment in ~350ns. I'm calling bullshit.

[@TonyGodshall]

Routers intended for distance (point to point) let you set this value, allow longer timeouts. Look at the manuals for Ubiquiti AirOS for example.

[@apsodric]

wow i thought you have two of these antennas! Impressed how far the signal goes from the esp.

[@canberksonmez3146]

The style used in this video reminds me of 3blue1brown. Nice video.

[@RomanLeBg]

its because of the text in the equation

[@Gameboygenius]

@@RomanLeBg it's actually using 3b1b's animation framework, which he open-sourced for anyone to use.

[@shadowboxing1729]

I'll pay whatever, so i can have internet from Starbucks at my home......

[@BritishBeachcomber]

Public WiFi sucks

[@AnilArya51]

Yep but Starbucks or employees in it make do something if they are geeks and if distance is less approx 2 Km it may be possible and ,Finally they may know your passwords , credit card details or something very important like your g mail account 😉 better go for taking a connection even there is chance that a hacker is between you and public WiFi which may cause you lot of damage ,so keep avoiding public WiFi

[@xgrapher]

@@AnilArya51 Lookup "humor" in dictionary

[@genxster]

Lmao ! The main general working points here are 1. That guy lives too far on country side. 2. I am barely seeing any other frequency operating ,even electronic item around in that bizzare .So ,nearely zero traffic congestion . 3. That's placed over on a mountain peak .

[@jimsonweed1846]

No you not, due ACK settings distance limitation.

[@basavarajusrinivas2785]

Damn, how is that I find these so interesting. When I was in college, I used to hate these.

[@derpinbird1180]

Thats really smart, the one way wifi hack allows you to legally use high gain directional antennas as they are only used to receive.

[@tinkmarshino]

that is damned impressive I would never have thought of this.. Well done fellows.. well done indeed!

[@BL08ardn]

In case someone, as me, try to understand how Jeija did this... There is no connection between emitter/receiver, this is achieved by not using conventionnal wifi but just the broadcast mode that is usually only used by the AP to advise any device that it's own network is in range, that mean this data isn't sent specifically to one device but to all of them able to listen (mainly this is network name, kind of password safety...etc). In the esp32-80211-tx sketch, we roughtly take the first part of the beacon frame, then add the false SSID name and then add the end of the beacon frame before to send it. By this way the hidden AP make believe that some other's network/AP are availables. That don't change the beacon frame size, it only make believe another sender exist. The same process can be use to carry data instead of fake SSID's, but the beacon frame isn't extensible so only, 32 bytes can be carried by SSID part, 6 bytes by BSSID (mac address) part and 253 bytes by the beacon Information Element part of the beacon frame. That mean the data to send must be splited in some consecutive beacon frame's with an ID number so that the receiver can reassemble the payload of each frame in order to reconstitute the original data. This process can be use for advertising or some other's legal stuff or... to stole data by a hacker. As you understood it's not an usual way to use the wifi beacon frame, that mean despite the screen of Jeija during the video look like a web page, there is no adress to connect to it because there is in fact no connection between emitter/receiver, it act few like terrestral numeric television (TNT). So it's necessary to have a special program on the receiver side that decode each beacon frame, extract each small payload data and reassemble it. This is probably the impressive job that Jeija did and it's really pity that for some reason (maybe good reason's), he seem to don't want to share specifically his camera example which is really amazing. Understand the code of esp32-80211-tx sketch and even modify it seem possible but the program to decode is definitely out of range regarding my knowledge... My aim was to make a target camera with numeric quality and long range (500 to 1200m). I won't do it ue to decoding program, if someone can and share, I would be very glad.

[@kokoscom]

This great!. Most interesting part is the ONE WAY telecommunication via Wi-fi!. While watching the video i asked my self "but wifi is bi-directional... how can??" and then you answered the question !!! :)

[@NekoMimiOfficial]

I gotta say, I didn't notice the video author until I saw that Lua controller channel image in the end of the video, then I remembered who you are Edit : imagine a minetest mod where you connect an esp32 to a Lua controller and possibly a new graphical display

[@JerryEricsson]

Very cool, I have the camera built into an ESP32 that is sitting in a drawer doing nothing along with several other ESP32's and 8266's. Perhaps I should put them to work, I have been playing with that idea for some time, this video simply adds to my desire to see it work. I have no need to go 10 K but putting the camera in the back window of my Ford Edge that is hooked to my 35 foot Class A motor home and putting the monitor on the dash of my rig sounds like a wonderful idea. I already have the backup camera system but my rig is over 10 years old now and the innards of the poor old B&W monitor have taken a beating, I need to rewire the power to get it working 100 percent, but now I have it at about 65% with the need for a sharp crack from my fist when it goes out. I have been repairing broken traces on the main board of the little monitor now before every major move, and it is getting to be a pain in the back climbing under the dash to access it all the time.

[@KuchBhiKabhiBhigaming]

man, this maths can burst my brain.

[@fanfare100]

That's why he simplified it.

What if you could use a directional antenna at ESP32-side? Of course a little bit smaller antenna than receiver, because ESP32 can not feed big antenna, I think. With directional antenna at ESP-32 could you increse the distance?

[@Jonnhy_24]

good to know, i have fiber 2km away from me, now i can install router fiber in my cousin house and use it!

[@ArunG273]

Did it work?

[@chrismartinus2622]

I just remove the antenna from the grid reflectors and mount the esp32 or esp8266 itself in a PVC tube in its place. It's still using the standard PCB antenna, but it's now in a nice high-gain place! So, "technically", I'm not really breaking the rules, but get a few kilometres range on my mesh networks. 🙂

[@zazugee]

i remember reading a blogpost about a guy using what he calls wifi-broadcast, where the cummication is unidirectional too but he uses UDP to send video signal

[@Apfelmusking]

great project! greetings from 10km further away :)

[@JohannesSchmitz]

Schönes Experiment! Wäre interessant es mal mit zwei Antennen und zwei Sendern aus unterschiedlichen Richtungen gleichzeitig zu probieren.

[@daniell.1298]

Super Erklärungen zur Theorie. Interessantes Experiment.

[@oadka]

Super good high quality work!

[@poepflater]

OMG I still have one of those giant antennas in the garage... used it for Wifi in the 90s was connected via card in PCI card reader.

[@poepflater]

NO, mine is even bigger, had a look,

[@hitriienot921]

Wow, it is looking good for my next project! I think It can replace LoRa modules, thanks for simple explanation!

[@jonshouse1]

Good video, little muddy on logic and rules, both ends are "the transmitting end"

[@HashanGayasri]

For a moment I was wondering how your going to establish the link without any RX from the ESP end. Great work.

[@hex2307]

In the UK all the matters is the power of the TX power of the device.

[@markarca6360]

Normal 802.3 or 802.11 modes: "You send packets, I receive my packets, and my neighbors receive theirs." Promiscuous mode: "Give me ALL the packets".

[@garrytalaroc]

SUBSCRIBED, i love these kinds of channel, fun learning

[@phiwatec2576]

4:13 where did you get that Ubuntu bag from?

[@benraouanetahar]

Hhh

[@rk81oman]

With the 24dB Antenna and 500mW I made contact to the QO100 Satellite. 36000km in 2,4 GHz

[@DavidLopez-bz4rj]

Hi, I am a ham operator here at Spain, which mode did you use? I have seen it works at 10GHz, but havent find at 2.4

[@TheAnical]

Great R synopsis. Make a video solving E=mc^2 for time.. really thought provoking.

[@FelixEFX]

Awesome video! I once tested something similar by sending data from the Teck :'D

[@mohamedgangat5003]

@Jeija Hi, what cable did you use to connect the USB WI-FI Adaptor to the antenna?

[@Jack-vv4ti]

Nice backpack (4:22)!

[@nlac73]

Dear author, would it be possible to publish 1) the final code that actually streams the jpeg data from esp32 with that one-way data stream and 2) some info how your notebook is able to receive it in that "monitor" mode? It would really-really helpful.. The published code (broadcasting some rickrolling SSIDs) is not really helpful to understand how the final project works. Thanks!

[@KirkBell]

Great video, thanks for sharing. Do you think there would be a way to do this in reverse but with just audio. So, to describe what I mean more, I would like to transmit audio using a directional antenna to a receiving device (or even better, many esp32 devices that will listen) that is in listen only mode. The idea is for on a large farm in Australia, multiple farm vehicles can be equipped with an ESP32 with a roof omni antenna so they can listen to internet radio streams while out in the fields (where no radio reception is available). I note your receiving antenna is a very large directional antenna, this is why I am wondering if it could be done in reverse so that a truck/car that would be moving around could just have an omni antenna. The directional antenna (or high gain omni) would be at the base, elevated on a roof top or mast.

[@Jeija]

I'm afraid that is not a good idea for multiple reasons: * Farm vehicles tend to operate on flat land or in a landscape with small-ish hills. Unfortuantely, as soon as you loose line of sight to the transmitter, the stream will stop since there is not much diffraction at 2.4GHz. Even if there is line of sight, the ground will cause destructive interference (the fresnel zone is obstructed) on flat land. * Audio streams are much more sensitive to volatile data rates; if I don't manage to transmit a picture all the time, I can just keep displaying the previous one, that won't work for audio. * The data rate here is really low, so even a 128kbit/s MP3 stream is quite challenging to get across reliably. * Encoding audio on an ESP32 is quite challenging already. So all in all, I'd guess you will propably be better off using some analogue system at lower frequencies. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong ;)

[@KirkBell]

Thank you Jeija, that clears up my thoughts on doing this as a project. The land where such a system would be used is extremely flat so line of site would be workable most of the time, but I didn't consider the realtime nature would be a major issue and make such a solution not workable. I was thinking of using the opus codec to attempt to get around this, but even then, as you mentioned as of yet the esp32 isn't quite ready for encoding. I'll revisit this as the esp32 becomes more mature. Thanks for your insight.

[@marcelobenitezabc]

how is this project going?!?!

[@kadetirk]

use separate chip for encode/decode mp3, YMPC-3001 for example

[@zazugee]

i think its possible to send the signal even further, but you're limited by line of sight, the 2.4Ghz have a limited NLOS ability, basicaly 4/3 beyond the horizon distance. i remember there was a record for wifi transmission done from 2 montains on different islands with over 300km distance.

[@rizwanrafeek3811]

I spent over $1500 by buying AMP and sector antenna, connectors, microwave cables but at the end I couldn't make it work. That was biggest money thrown in the trash experience for me.

[@muhannedalsaif153]

Very interesting experiment, thanks!

[@Safnahdotcom]

very nice video , I have question is it single directional this ESP32 only to receive or it can be used to send/receive data either ?

[@42IsAnything]

Great project man ;-) Schöne Grüße in den Süden ;-)

[@brokenicry]

You just earned my subscription

[@JOELwindows7]

This is your daily dose of Recommendation So far Wireless range

[@TheRealKitWalker]

cool video! loved your experiment!

[@mhammmedjaouhari5106]

great video do you think we can get the same results if we use omni directional antenna ?

[@zeedee9548]

Pretty impressive!! 👍

[@gkzhou7571]

that's 。。。。。wonderful！！！！！太得劲了大兄弟

[@radiumray9]

大兄弟，你复现成功了？

[@jamesmaxwell381]

Excellent. liked and subscribed ;-)

[@cygmoid]

Impressive.Nice work

[@ceejayc6502]

I have the AI thinker module ESP-32S and the FT232RL and still no joy. But I refuse to order another one. There is someone who recommends adding a small 10Uf capacitor between 2 spots. I suppose i will try that next. But i didn't realize there was face recognition in the software... for $8? Wow.

[@joellagace1679]

Wifi is great for point to point. When they use to it share internet like wireless ISP I hate it.

[@user-gr5do8nk7e]

omg that's very impressive!

[@UbirajaraTheodoro]

WOW, great video!

[@qwertzui]

Kurz aus dem Fenster schauen..shit mehr als 10km - aber die Burg sieht man an guten Tagen trotzdem :-D

[@linaso9739]

When I started watching the video my first thought was that you must have exceeded EIRP allowed by regulations but I was surprised that you could achieve all that and still be legit :)

[@electronic7979]

Excellent video

[@markarca6360]

The hill top is the best spot to put a WISP tower.

[@user-dw6fj1py1o]

3:38 Code Word: Hohenneuffen Castle

[@takeyoshix]

Alles in einem recht informatives Video... wusste gar nicht daß man da so viel herausholen kann mit einer guten Empfangsantenne. Auf der Senderseite war nur die PCB-Antenne des ESP-moduls nehm ich an? Mich würde auch interessieren was das für ein mega-zoom-rohr sein musste um so nah herangehen zu können. Da gabs doch mal so ein Russen-Rohr (eher ein Teleskop mit M42 canon bajonet wenn ich mich recht entsinne...)

[@gladsongladson2932]

Very nice video keep doing this🤗

[@NikiBretschneider]

2:23 - this is like at VUT university. Simple and clear things are overexplained and when it comes to crucial and not so easy to understand thing, explanation is omitted. It took me abt. 15sec to get how the Pr[dBm] = Pt[dBm] + Gt[dBi] + Gr[dBi] + 20dB log (λ/4πR) is transformed into Pr[dBm] = const. -20dB log(R) and the only I can say about that is that is not straightforward. Hint: λ is constant, 4π is also constant, so 2 log(λ) is constant and 2 log(4π) too. Please, don't do this nerdy cosmology things like "Yeah, bro, that's cool equation, let's put it on a t-shirt." without knowing what that means.

[@shauryapratap]

Loved your work

[@Sydney-Ghumo]

Who would have ever thought if a 10km long LORA...

[@shrinathk.1095]

I do have 24 dbi grid panel . Problem is obstacles , can't use it practically for long distance.

[@thanos.at.mountains]

Great content mate!

[@ot2707]

Nice project

[@ShinSheel]

3:45 HEY, I know that reference

[@almirbajsini]

What is the range like with normal antenna like can i use it for a arduino based plane ?

[@GoatZilla]

I think the lesson here is really "signal-to-noise"

[@miniwarrior7]

it seems you're not talking about the ability of the ESP but the ability of the receiver

[@km5405]

hes talking about the sensitivity of the wifi aspect of the esp32 chip I think

[@militantpotato8671]

The transmission is still done by an Esp without any antenna.

[@jamisusijarvi646]

@@militantpotato8671 without any additional antenna. That esp module includes PCB printed antenna.

[@militantpotato8671]

@@jamisusijarvi646 i meant an external antenna like the directional one on the recieving end. Dont go all technical on me man, i'm just a hobbyist not an engineer.

[@AtomkeySinclair]

4:15 ~ Did he say 60 year old antenna? You can get those on Amazon. Great content. Thanks.

[@jokerash]

60euro antenna :D

[@AtomkeySinclair]

@@jokerash Hahaha! Oh man. Yeah that makes perfect sense now. Thanks for the clarification on that. Duh.

[@boogerking7411]

Bah! I dont care about regulations! I'll use 1w power!

[@vk3fbab]

Become an amateur radio operator and you can legally run a lot more power than that. In Australia you could run up to 120w with no limit on EIRP. You would just need to do a few things like transmitting your call sign and not user encryption to comply with the rules. Other countries may allow even more power. Keep in mind power doesn't always help and I've been able to use legal wifi power levels to cover 40km.

[@vk3fbab]

@excited box you might get better than 10km too even with omni antennas. Height is might. I've done over 40km wifi without having to resort to using Ham power levels. From 100m high apartment to a 250m high summit.

[@zazugee]

​@@vk3fbab being a radio operator doesnt give you right to emit whatever power on all frequencies you can only exploit your license on ham radio specific ones the wifi standard falls on the 2.4Ghz band and its an ISM band, its license free to use, but with a limited power and you're not protected from interference by other devices

[@vk3fbab]

@@zazugee in Australia we have rights to operate over a fair bit of the 2.4ghz ISM band under ham license. So long as I comply with the license I could legally tx 120W power. Would I? Not much point as you don't need that much power at 2.4. ham bands and power levels differ around the world. Here for advanced calls it's 120w any bandwidth any emission mode at 2.4ghz.

[@subramaniamchandrasekar1397]

How much power needed to transmit signals to and fro from Mars? Anyone? Does Mars rover has a big receiver or a transmitter?

[@tanders12]

Very cool! Do you have a recommendation for a decent ESP32 development board? The smaller the better.

[@darkmagic2242]

How can i build a audio transmitter? Sending and receiving

[@TheBhumbak]

Amazing work 👌👌👌

[@John_Smith__]

Good video, but the promiscuous mode of operation on the ESP32 should not influence the bidirectional data exchange.

[@andreyl2705]

amazing work)

[@PietroBroccolo]

Can you pls list the used components?

[@lucasr1]

nice antena! have you used ESP NOW protocol? is also in 2.4g ghz band.

[@serdarxxx1073]

Hohenneuffen Castle, da war ich schon einige Male oben, super Aussicht bei gutem Wetter. Kommst du von dort?

[@Jeija]

Ja, aus der Gegend um Nürtingen.

[@NicksStuff]

5:13 Is your mode close to the performance of the ESP-Now LR? Or would that further improve range?

[@UnwrappingByMimiKoteng]

I would use this for my home

[@PlatinaSB]

Wait if the communication is one way for long distance if we use two devices 1 for transmit and 1 for receiving we can make two ways communication is that right? (Sorry my English is bad)

[@getphuked2]

Forget the wifi, how did you get that little lens to zoom in like that?

[@DarthZackTheFirstI]

huawei p30, can zoom up to distances of earth-moon .

[@Kevin-yh8ol]

Amazing to see how well that tiny chip can transmit data so far away. Is it possible to increase the received data quality by using something like a dish at the transmitter side to direct most of the radio signals towards the receiver?

[@Jeija]

Technically possible yes, but also most likely illegal due to the increased EIRP (at least in the EU). So there's no point in having a directional dish antenna at the transmitter if you then have to decrease transmit power anyways. Of course that's different in countries with higher EIRP limits, e.g. Australia.

[@pverbakel]

Would it be possible to convert a Satelite Dish into a Wifi - Transmitter point? I could think of many applications in countries where there is no internet available at remote locations. I would be interested in solutions for such an antenna pair

[@Jeija]

To be honest, I think you'd be better off just using dedicated equipment. Directional WiFi antennas really aren't that expensive and you can also get special outdoor access points that include all the electronics for little money. I don't know that much about internet access in remote locations / developing countries to be honest, but I was of the impression that LTE is making great progress in countries like India, where Jio just built up an LTE-only network in the last couple of months.

[@KevinJohnson-fw8kv]

@@Jeija most countries don't even enforce the laws... they just restrict imports. But if the imported products have their firmware modded after they make it through customs, it's pretty much a FFA.

[@ElektroOptikAkademi]

Distance bird's eye view Max 2 Km. You should give examples as birds eye view, not walking distance.

[@fahadsharifi7055]

4:47 Eye-to-Eye range

[@BatfoxBabe]

The range is impressive, but the little WIFI on the ESP32 is not anything special. It is your receiver that is amazing, that and that amazing antenna which is picking up data over such a long distance.

[@MoizCOUK]

Use 2 UBNT Lite beams u will get full speed network ovr wifi they cost like 80 euro for 2

[@StarsAtNight1]

Great video

[@bogdanalexandru147]

please can you tell me how do you connect your usb wifi adapter with the antena?