Enabling WiFi-Direct on Mac

Question

I recently purchased a Samsung NX1000 camera which has built-in WiFi, and supports sending images via WiFi-Direct to other devices. When I try to do this while both my Mac and the camera are in the same WiFi network (my home router), the camera doesn't find any WiFi-Direct compatible devices.

I scoured the web for information about WiFi-Direct, obviously, but the most promising information I found were a number of articles in a tech blog back in 2009, saying it will "come soon" to Mac OS and other consumer electronic devices. Other people on StackOverflow tried programming against it (mostly with mobile platform SDKs such as Android/WP7/iOS), replacing Bluetooth functionality, but that's not what I want.

I also read that the AirDrop functionality of Lion is in parts based on the idea of WiFi-Direct, but it seems they are not quite the same (confusing me further).

From the behavior of the camera, I gather there must be a way to "enable" my Mac for WiFi-Direct. Is that true, and if so, how do I do it?

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 18 '13 at 07:47

9

Mac's don't have Wifi Direct capabilities in current version os OSX. Hence any device that uses WiFi direct (Android phones, Samsung cameras), instead of supporting AdHoc networking, will not work.

answered Apr 18 '13 at 07:47

Paul Hargreaves

1,944

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 14 '14 at 04:40

2

This might help.

Part of the article says:

Since we don’t have WiFi Direct capability on a Macbook, we can emulate it using other means. We will make the Mac as a WiFi Direct Server while the Android Smartphone will be a client. Once the connectivity has been established, we can transfer the files via ES File explorer using Windows File Sharing.

edited Oct 14 '14 at 04:40

DavidPostill

162,382

answered Oct 14 '14 at 00:04

Ozanimal

21

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 29 '16 at 09:46

0

The simplest solution is to use AirDroid app if your Samsung camera comes with Android OS.

Because Mac's don't have Wifi Direct capabilities, and AirDroid is server application based on lightweight PAW Server, you can install it in your phone to exchange files between the Mac and your Android phone.

edited Feb 29 '16 at 09:46

Burgi

6,768

answered Feb 15 '16 at 02:04

Ihab Shoully

117

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 18 '13 at 07:40

I've looked at Samsung's webpage, and looked for software which might facilitate the 'WiFi Direct' feature that's briefly mentioned on page 121 of the NX1000 user manual. I did not find any software.

A common WiFi configuration (for which there are many names) is to be set to only allow a WiFi client to connect to a WiFi Access Point. Setting this feature on the access point to allow WiFi clients to exchange traffic might get something working. In the 'Sharing' preference pane, enabling File Sharing and perhaps Bluetooth Sharing might also help, although Samsung's documentation is vague as to what WiFi-Direct actually is.

(To see if you have WiFi Client to Client communication enabled, you ought to be able to ping your camera's IP address from your computer.)

Enabling WiFi-Direct on Mac

4 Answers4