Comments on: Wireless Arduino programming with ZigBee

By: t.h.

t.h. — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:41:05 +0000

can anyone tell me how to use the xbee in
an ad hoc mode? it seems to always in
a “Personal Area Network” mode, configured
to their own way of doing mesh. i’d like
to be able to receive any kind of zigbee
msg and send any kind of zigbee msg.

By: lance

lance — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:11:31 +0000

Has anyone published a tutorial like this for bluetooth? The bluetooth boards are rather expensive, and I’m really just looking to getting data through bluetooth, not reprogramming the arduino remotely.

By: vexorg

vexorg — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:53:11 +0000

This looks like its idea came from http://rob.faludi.com/itp/XBee_DriveBy/XBee_DriveBy_presentaion.pdf

More information at
http://itp.nyu.edu/~raf275/meshnetworking/XBee/

By: Octavio

Octavio — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:43:21 +0000

@justdiy
Hi, we at libelium (www.libelium.com) use arduino+xbee to create open hardware sensor networks.
We have developed squidbee (www.squidbee.com) so anybody can use it for their own developments. And is a growing community that develop with squidbee as you can see in http://www.sensor-networks.org

I hope this info can be usefull.

By: paul

paul — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 02:05:34 +0000

@justdiy
at burning man this year there was an impressive example of mesh netowrking in action using arduinos and xbee transceivers. You can see the artist’s site here:
http://www.blueink.com/ThePool/2008/ThePool2008.htm
basically each pod has it’s on xbee/aruduino, multiple directional pressure sensors, and 24 color led’s. If someone steps on the pod; the pod lights up, and the arduino sends a signal to its neighboring pods who in turn light up and pass on the signal. the result is beautiful ripples =)

By: justDIY

justDIY — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:29:32 +0000

Can anyone point to projects using the zigbee / xbee for anything other than serial cable emulation? zigbee makes a terribly expensive serial cable in my humble opinion.

Lets see some mesh networking projects done on simple hardware!

By: obor

obor — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:48:51 +0000

hey,
that’s a good idea, Xbee and Arduino make a good couple to build useful applications. Recently, I made my own RC transmitter/receiver with a similar principle: http://effetdebord.blogspot.com

By: ladyada

ladyada — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:06:42 +0000

@biozz the xbee shield is neat but its not going to be cheaper, there’s also no real easy way to pass along the reset signal without adding more messy components :)

@fartface/ragnar: 433 & 900 mhz modules have a spot in my heart, but by the time you add error correction, retransmit, sleep mode, packetization, addressing, a/d inputs, point2multipoint, baud rate control, etc. its about $20 each ;) if you Just Want It To Work then I rather like the xbee’s

By: fartface

fartface — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:09:36 +0000

zigbee is cool but horribly overpriced. you can get the 433Mhz Xciever boards for dirt nowdays.

By: biozz

biozz — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:50:50 +0000

@ charlie
well if you want to go there the arduino its self is sort of a pussy way to get things done almost but its the simplest (unless you want to dust off the old basic stamp 2) and it gets most basic things done

By: ragnar

ragnar — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:58:44 +0000

try a search for rfm12, which is a tranceiver module for 5 euro ($6), those zigbees seems very expensive for the job. separate reveiver (rfm01) or transmitter (rfm02) are 3.50 euro, or $4.

By: charlie

charlie — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:39:47 +0000

man, i did that like a year ago… then fried one of the xbees by putting it in backwards. :( and 80 bucks for that shield… shit myself! arduino boards are for pussy’s anyways. miss limor is a cool bean though. guess i must make something myself for you to write about…

By: biozz

biozz — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:19:37 +0000

“It can be used as a serial/usb replacement or you can put it into a command mode and configure it for a variety of broadcast and mesh networking options.”
http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoXbeeShield

By: biozz

biozz — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:17:51 +0000

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8471 a simple modification of that may be cheaper and look nicer