Communicating with an XBee based thermostat

Wireless & IoT
1

I recently purchased a ZigBee based [thermostat from eBay, and would like to get this working. I am new to playing with ZigBee hardware, but do understand what ZigBee is all about.

So I purchased the [XBee Explorer Serial and 1 [XBee 2mW Series 2.5 Chip Antenna, since the thermostat shipped with a Series 2 XBee chip.

The thermostat’s installer menu only have a few ZigBee related functions, such as the ZigBee network info (view only), and the ability to join/part a network. Nowhere do I see the option to define parameters such as the PanID, so I’m not sure what to do next. The ZigBee info screen shows that the PanID is FFFF.

I am able to talk to the XBee I purchased from SparkFun just fine using X-CTU, but that’s as far as I get. I have tried changing the PanID to FFFF on my XBee chip, and executed the ‘join zigbee network’ menu option on the thermostat, but no luck.

Since the thermostat has a regular XBee Series 2 chip as well, I was hoping this would be a simple project, but even if it isn’t simple, I am willing to learn, since I am interested in doing more XBee related projects.

Can anyone tell me what I should be doing next? I checked most ZigBee/XBee related tutorials, and while they were helpful with explaining some of the ZigBee related stuff, I haven’t gotten anywhere. Your input would be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks!](http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8691)](SparkFun XBee Explorer Serial - WRL-13225 - SparkFun Electronics)](http://cgi.ebay.com/Zigbee-programmable-thermostat-RCS-TZ43-Green-Energy-/120601483979?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c14689acb#ht_998wt_1137)

2

The XBee series 2 module you bought will not ‘talk’ to a ZigBee device since it is running Firmware for Digi’s ZNet2.5. Both use 802.15.4 at a lower layer of the protocol but have a different high level protocol.

In X-CTU go to the Modem Configuration tab to change the Firmware to ZigBee.

Once your XBee has ZigBee firmware then you really don’t need to play with Pan IDs etc. The XBee running Coordinator Firmware will do a Node discovery and form the network allowing all found nodes to join. Yes, ONE Node Must be the network Coordinator and all the others are either Routers or End Devices.

There is more information on Digi Int’s web site including how the change the Firmware from ZNet2.5 to ZigBee.

http://www.digi.com/support/productdetl … s=365&tp=2

3

Thanks for the quick response!

I just changed the SparkFun XBee to ‘ZIGBEE COORDINATOR AT’ and wrote the changes successfully. I’ll test this later today when I have access again to the thermostat.

4

Ok. Please let us know how this works out.

5

No luck. I am convinced I’m doing something wrong, but not sure what yet. Here are some pics of the info screen, and the XBee chip in the tstat:

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/231214/1 … t?h=c70899

Thanks in advance!

6

After powering on the XBee coordinator did you tell the ZigBee thermostat to re-associate with a network?

Did you do a Node Discovery from the X-CTU?

Another possibility is to enter the PAN ID of the ZigBee thermostat into the XBee.

There is some documents on the Digi site about using other makes of ZigBee devices.

7

I plugged in the tstat’s XBee chip, and it reads in API mode. It is reporting as a XB24-ZB ZIGBEE ROUTER API, using version 2341. So I guess I purchased the wrong chip, eventho the part numbers seem to match?

I have a second tstat, but am unable to change its XBee chip into a coordinator. It complains it can’t go in programming mode when trying to configure it as a ZIGBEE COORDINATOR API unit.

Any thoughts?

8

I got it working!

Eventually, I managed to change the firmware on the SparkFun XBEE to the -ZB version, and that was all I needed. Thank you for all your help!