Jill and I each have a Nintendo 3DS. They’re great little systems for some quick gaming now and then. She likes the Mario games, I like puzzle games (especially Professor Layton and Ace Attorney), and we both still visit our Animal Crossing villages every now and then.
One of my favorite features is StreetPass: when I carry the 3DS around with me for a while, the number of steps I’ve taken and the other 3DS owners I’ve walked past will “power up” some minigames. It’ll give me the names and home states of the people I meet this way. Carrying one around a Disney park will usually get us a few connections, though not as many as it used to.
Best Buy stores have something called a “Nintendo Zone”, where bringing a 3DS into the store will “meet” other 3DS owners who’ve been there recently. (This used to also be offered at McDonalds and Starbucks as well as a few other places, I think.) But I’ve long been curious about how exactly this works, and how to set up a Nintendo Zone in our own house so we can make lots of these connections much more often.
Turns out it’s easy! In short, all it needs is an open access point named “attwifi”, with a MAC address that’s set to the same thing as being used by other access points. More detailed instructions at “https://www.reddit.com/r/3DS/comments/1k0g58/setting_up_a_streetpass_relay_at_home/“. It can be done with a laptop, or a wireless base station, or a Raspberry Pi, or a wide variety of other devices.
I set one up yesterday and I’ve already “met” people from Canada, France, Japan, Australia, and lots of other places.