I’m planning on using stage caller to trigger multiple iphones for a film shoot on location. The only issue / question I have is connecting the phones to my computer. I will not have power on location. If I host a hostspot from my computer how strong do you think this signal will be, do you anticipate any problems? I’ve thought of building a battery for a network switch, this seems like an extreme solution, but if my network won’t be strong enough to support 4+ iphones I can’t think of an alternative.
The number of phones doesn’t really make a difference - if the network is stable, it’ll be stable for one or five devices.
I’d say do some research on the most stable hotspots available, and be sure they have the range you need for the shoot.
The upside of a shoot, of course, is that if you do lose network, you can redo the take, tho no one wants to waste that time. I’d definitely say do some serious tests before shoot day!
I haven’t done any testing using adhoc networks in some time - last I remember MIDI did not work with an adhoc network… but that was OS X 10.5 or 10.6, and my memory isn’t that good… regardless, you ‘should’ be able to do OSC with an adhoc - I’ll try and test this over the next few days (assuming you haven’t already)
Rob is correct in that the number of devices (unless you’ve got like 20 phones) shouldn’t impact the network - I remember that adhoc networks used to limit the number of devices, but that was a long time ago and I don’t know if that limitation still exists on modern equipment
Using a hotspot (like from sprint or something) might be interesting, but I’m not sure how they handle local routing (midi doesn’t like crossing network boundaries)… so test stuff out before relying on it - I’ll see if I can get my hands on a hotspot for testing
I hadn’t thought of using stagecaller with movie shoots before (not sure why I didn’t) - keep us in the loop with any issues/ideas/needs you might come across
I found and purchased a bus powered router. I’ll be testing it within the next week, I’m not anticipating any issues, but I guess I’ll find out. I’ll let you know! I’m planning on using OSC from QLAB. Should be interesting. Thanks for the support!