Investigating Raspberry Pi Access Point Client Limit for Use in IoT Education

This paper explores a lesser-known limitation of using a Raspberry Pi as an access point: it is impossible to establish more than 8 concurrent connections using the current firmware. This limitation is particularly relevant in the educational field, when teaching IoT concepts. The limitation is unknown outside online forums, but has been recognized by the Raspberry Pi development team, who have provided a partial solution. An independent investigation showed that a memory limitation inside the Wi-Fi chip was the cause of the problem. The paper proposes a methodology for experiments to capture the moment of the failed connection, performs testing, and provides recommendations for future research, highlighting the issue of using closed-source Wi-Fi drivers in open-source projects.