I've found that I can just connect a vanilla Linksys router with minimal setup (e.g. set the SSID and a security password) to a mesh node's LAN port and the vanilla router becomes a mesh access point.  My iPad can wirelessly connect to the AP (prompted for password) and then all the mesh services are available in the browser, such as "localnode:8080" for the node status page.

Since this provides the wireless access that I want, including a wifi password if desired, are there any advantages to flashing the router and setting it up as a Hamnet "Mesh Access Point"?

  Paul

There are pro's and con's to both.

Pro for both being BBHN would be everything is the same firmware.

Pro for keeping virgin Linksys FW is ease of WEP/WPA (tougher to set in our firmware, since we are not supposed to use encryption under Part97...doable, just more difficult)

You can do what you suggest and it will work.

KTF

Thanks for your thoughts, Jim.

I'm only setting an access password on the AP, so I don't think any content (after authentication) would be encrypted.   And even if it was, it seems like the encryption would only be on the iPhone-to-AP wireless link, so everything going over the mesh would still be clear text, I would think.

  Paul