Do I have to have a shield to use Xbee with arduino

Wireless & IoT
1

Hello All,

I am new to all of this and trying to understand a couple things after reading a bunch of posts:

I have an Xbee pro s1 on a sparkfun breakout board plus the arduino duemilanove

If I connect:

XBEE VCC → Arduino 3.3V

XBEE GND → Arduino GND

XBEE DOUT → Arduino Rx

XBEE DIN → Arduino Tx

Will this suffice to sending and receiving data (outside of the programming of course)? Are any other connections required? If this is all you need I guess just trying to understand the need for a shield.

Also if I pop out the ATMega chip (with the above wiring) and plug the Arduino USB into my computer should I be able to configure the XBEE from my MAC using the AT commands?

Thanks in advance!

2

XBEE DIN → Arduino Tx

At least this pin will have to go through a 5 V → 3.3 V voltage divider, because not all Xbees are 5 V tolerant. Check the datasheet of your module to see if you need this.

Otherwise yes, these are really the only pins you need to work with.