long time customer, first time poster here. I am looking for some opinions on my project as I have little experience in the wireless area.
I have a bunch of AVRs connected to different systems performing different tasks. I would like to be able to send messages, wirelessly, between all of these systems. My ideal system would be able to send a message to a given address (unique addresses for all nodes) and just have it arrive, even when the two devices are not in range of each other but there is a node/s within range of both of them that could relay the message. For example: have AVR1 send the message, “To 0xF4A3, turn on LED1” and have the message routed among other nodes until the device located at 0xF4A3 receive the message “turn on LED1”.
I started out with those 433mhz tx/rx combo things, but they basically only allow 2 devices to be connected and I need a few more than that. I am a self-taught electronics hobbyist so I would prefer not to have to construct such a complex system on my own; does anyone know of a system like this that is commercially available (and hopefully cheap ?
you are describing mesh networking. zigbee is the current standard. You can buy zigbee modules from a number of companies. xbee, SFE carries them, is one but there are many others. Just a word of warning - zigbee isn’t trivial. There is a bit of a learning curve. The good news is the modules are pretty cheap - starting at about $20.
Hi. I’m currently experimenting with the HAC-UM96 modem. It’s quite simple to use and right now i’m using it to send messages between 4 little robots. It’s quite easy to operate. however, relaying a message between a few of the nodes to a far away node requires programming since it is not a built in feature. BUT, the basic reange of these modules is quite good. what kind of distance are you talking about?
I had a look at the xbee modules; I cannot believe I didn’t find them before. I’m not afraid of a learning curve, but can I just ask one more question to clarify: assuming everything is set up correctly, can I simply use AT commands on the serial port of my AVR to send messages to another node?
eran, thanks, but I have already tried modules similar to that and they did not work out.
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