Ask HN: How to sniff 802.11ac?

[shervinshaikh]

I'm researching possible ways to sniff 802.11ac traffic to measure building occupancy. So far Raspberry Pi's don't seem promising because of their lack of support for those chipsets. Intel NUC seems to be too expensive.

Any other recommendations for cheap linux hardware that supports 802.11ac?

Also any good resources on capturing and analyzing traffic?

[jgeorge]

Have you looked at the Intel Galileo? It's a singleboard computer, and can run something Debian-ish. The stock Intel software is very scaled down busybox, but I'm pretty sure there's a full Debian variant for it, I haven't looked in a while. It supports PCI Express mini cards, and there are a couple of Wifi adapters that should work (AC7260 for example).

The cost is a bit higher than a Pi (The Galileo would be around $79 and the wifi card another $30 or so) but still far cheaper than kitting up a NUC.

I'm rather fond of the NUCs, they're not the cheapest things in the world for the size, but you do have quite a bit more flexibility since it's a full-on PC at that point and not a SBC.