Cross-Platform P2P Wi-Fi: How the EU Killed AWDL

I recently wanted to do point-to-point Wi-Fi for transferring some data but apparently support for the ad-hoc IBSS mode wasn&#x27;t available on my MT7925. Wi-Fi Aware is completely new to me and didn&#x27;t come up while searching on the topic at all. I can&#x27;t find anything about using it on Linux now either. Anybody have any references on its support?<p>There&#x27;s a single kernel commit referencing Wi-Fi Aware from 2023 [0]. iw supposedly supports a few commands pertaining to it [1].<p><pre><code> [0] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.git.kernel.org&#x2F;pub&#x2F;scm&#x2F;linux&#x2F;kernel&#x2F;git&#x2F;torvalds&#x2F;linux.git&#x2F;commit&#x2F;?h=v6.14&amp;id=9b89495e479c5fedbf3f2eca4f1c4e9dd481265e [1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stackoverflow.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;53594406&#x2F;implementing-a-wifi-aware-application-outside-android</code></pre>

I really wish there were some write-ups for doing wifi-p2p aka wifi-aware (the wifi alliance&#x27;s proprietary branding for it) on Linux! Incredibly sad that it&#x27;s just so so so undocumented; such a neat sounding suite of capabilities.<p>Haven&#x27;t looked in 2-3 years, but found so little ehm last I looked. Very dismaying. So many folks doing &quot;p2p&quot; file sharing apps, but generally they assume you have setup networking already. We really need to own the means of connectivity. Especially now!

WiFi Aware looks interesting but there seems to be very little information out there beyond Android related docs and associated links. It seems to be hidden away behind the doors of WiFi alliance.<p>Can anyone familiar with the topic chime in what it would take to utilize WiFi Aware in let&#x27;s say a Raspberry Pi (maybe using a different wireless chip connected via usb)? Maybe even to connect to Android smartphones

I frequently play Age of Empires 2 with my wife and her brother. Remarkably, this game still supports LAN play in 2025, even though the netcode has been completely overhauled since 1999.<p>However, we decided to try it on a recent flight, and it turns out it still requires an internet connection, both to satisfy Steam, and to connect to some sort of LAN coordination server. I ended up paying $20 for in-flight wifi.<p>We&#x27;ve lost a lot in the last 30 years, but tech like wifi aware might help bring back local-first networking. I choose to believe that if solid APIs exist, developers will use them.

&gt;A quietly published EU interoperability roadmap mandates Apple support Wi-Fi Aware 4.0 in iOS 19 and v5.0,1 thereafter, essentially forcing AWDL into retirement.<p>Whats stopping Apple from doing both?

The interesting question is authentication&#x2F;authorization - at the moment, macOS greatly simplifies this as long as both devices belong to the same Apple ID. On the opposite side, Samsung does the same.<p>How will that work out?

There is a new alternative p2p mesh wireless in town, and suprisingly it was introduced by IEEE Wi-Fi Alliance rival 3GPP. It&#x27;s the very first non-cellular standard for 5G namely DECT NR+ [1]. Since it&#x27;s backward compatible with DECT it will be very supportive of real-time traffic for voice.<p>[1] What is DECT-2020 New Radio (NR), and how big a deal is it? (2021)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=39849335">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=39849335</a>

If you&#x27;ve never heard of Ditto before, they&#x27;re one of the leaders in cross platform small-scale mesh networking.<p>If they&#x27;re excited about this, I&#x27;m excited about this.

&gt; Wi-Fi Ad-hoc. It never gained widespread use.<p>I don&#x27;t think this is true. In the early 2000s, in Germany, the alternative, now vastly used &quot;infrastructure mode&quot; was rare because Wi-Fi basestations were rare and expensive, e.g. DSL modems didn&#x27;t have built-in Wi-Fi.<p>So the only way of wirelessly sharing internet at home &#x2F; files with friends at university (which also didn&#x27;t have Wi-Fi yet) was with ad-hoc mode.

This is good news

My understanding is that Apple already does have Wi-Fi Aware support (as it is required for interoperable implementations of things like ISO 18013-5).<p>Is this about mandating a version upgrade, or about adding some developer API surface for it?

Interesting!<p>Basically the EU is now able to force american companies to do things that the US regulator will not do, probably because Apple can manage to lobby US congress but not the EU parliament.<p>That probably means that US companies can probably help &quot;counter&quot; Apple on certain things as long as the EU sees that it benefits the consumer.<p>I don&#x27;t know if Trump somehow caused this situation.

I dunno what the site is doing (mining crypto?), but it takes two cores to fullest throttle for me.

So Apple has to drop UWB until the spec catches up?

Sounds like they’d keep it as yet another Apple exclusive instead of y’know, introducing a new industry thing

&quot; It took the concepts Apple pioneered (timeslot synchronization... &quot;<p>Pioneered does not mean inventing, never seen before concept. Pioneered means in this context - taking concepts already used in other radio networks and using them in their &quot;wifi stack&quot;. Concepts used for decades before Apple even had iphone.<p>I am not sure what &#x2F; why is there difference between speeds of AWDL vs NAN in that table, my understanding was it can transfer at same speeds. Speed being limited by upload capability of &quot;wifi chip&quot;.

I do love bureaucrats who could not tell Wifi from InfraRed deciding what comms standards are to be used.

So it&#x27;s lightning all over again? Lightning was better than micro-usb, then USB-C came out and was even better and people get pissy at Apple for creating something better than the standard (and donating some of that back to the standard).<p>I know this will not be popular here but I really do not like the EU&#x27;s most recent round of &quot;no, you have to open up this feature&quot;.