WiFi nightlight

The O'Reilly geniuses who gave us NoCat and the Pringles Can WiFi Antenna have shipped the NoCat Nightlight, a weatherproof wireless access point integrated into a light-fixture that screws into a socket that provides network connectivity over the powerline. I got to fondle this thing last month at ETCON, and it really feels like a good, outdoor light fixture.

One of our first concerns was practical rather than technical. Obviously, if you're going to replace a light bulb with an access point, the room will likely get darker. That is, unless the AP can also provide light as well. After fooling with a couple of lighting ideas, we finally soldered some copper romex onto a fluorescent bulb as a prototype. The romex is rigid enough to hold the lamp steady, and easy to solder to. The fluorescent bulb would obviously be dimmer than a 300 watt spot lamp, but it would be better than nothing. And as a flourescent runs much cooler, it probably wouldn't turn the guts of the access point to liquid. This solved the light issue well enough for the moment, but how could we connect the whole thing to a standard light bulb socket?

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(via Futurismic)