Connect NI Wireless Network Device to PC Hosted WLAN

Updated Apr 3, 2023

Reported In

Hardware

myRIO Student Embedded Device
cDAQ-9191

Issue Details

I am trying to connect my NI Wireless Network Device to my PC or Laptop. I have already tried to set up an Ad Hoc Network on my NI device while it was connected over Ethernet with my computer.
But after I unplug the Ethernet cable and try to connect to the hosted WLAN with my PC I am not able to reach the device in MAX:

Is there an alternative way to connect my device over a WLAN to my computer?

Solution

Alternatively to hosting a WLAN from the NI network device, another approach is to set up a WLAN hotspot on the PC or laptop and connect the NI device directly to this hosted network.
This approach is especially useful on a Windows 10 computer with a network adapter which does not support IBSS leading to connection issues.

To set up a WLAN hotspot in Windows 10 and connect the NI device to it, the following steps are necessary (for other Windows versions configuration steps can differ):

Make sure your PC has an Ethernet, Wi-Fi or cellular data connection
Go to Settings, Network & Internet and select Mobile Hotspot
Click Edit and select a network name, password and frequency band (usually 2.4 GHz), afterwards turn on the hotspot:
While connected via Ethernet, configure the NI network device in MAX to connect to the newly established WLAN by selecting the name of the network and entering the password. Afterwards the NI network device should be connected via WLAN:
After the device is connected to the WLAN unplug the Ethernet cable and check if the NI device is reachable wirelessly

Additional Information

It is also possible create an ad hoc network on the NI network device and connect to this network but in many cases wireless connections fail under Windows 10 due to missing IBSS support. More information can be found under Why Hosted and Ad-Hoc Networks Are Not Working on Windows® 10

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