I am doing a microcontroller based remote control, and chose ATMEL ATmega8 for the job. And then got hold of a few HAC-UM96 from SparkFun to begin work.
To my surprise, I see the exact same MCU on the HAC board! But in low power version ATmega8L. What a coincidence! I have a very good feeling about compatibility of UART interfacing between my circuit and this device now. 
cheaper/better: Digi XBee modules - sold also by SFE
Cheaper, not really… for the distance / range I need to get. They’re about $40 a module.
Better? Well, the Xbee seems way more capable, and complex than I need. I need to pass a couple bytes of data over the air when you press a button. One ADC value and some logic values. Of course, with a unique address to avoid collision where multiple units are used.
Maybe one day I’ll jump deeper into these Xbee things.
Yeah, if just a couple of bytes, they're an overkill. I have gotten 3/4 mile in 2.4GHz line of sight with 5dBi gain on one end and the other end being a simple PC board antenna, with XBee PROsscottmcphee:
Cheaper, not really… for the distance / range I need to get. They’re about $40 a module.Better? Well, the Xbee seems way more capable, and complex than I need. I need to pass a couple bytes of data over the air when you press a button. One ADC value and some logic values. Of course, with a unique address to avoid collision where multiple units are used.
Maybe one day I’ll jump deeper into these Xbee things.
A one-way link for a couple of bytes that’s more than 100 ft is hard to do with cheap and unlicensed band/low power radios.