Microchip has a decent ZigBee Transceiver that is about 1/2 the cost of the Digi International one. It also does not have some of the limitations of the Digi unit (e.g. max number of end nodes supported).
http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/De … e=en535967
Any one else interested in using a non-Digi ZigBee module?
Just FYI: This isn’t as plug and play as the Digi ones, provided there is no firmware on the device. You are expected to place the ZigBee user stack on your microcontroller. Microchip does provide example implementations for you however.
You are right - it is not as plug and play as the Digi ones. Also, it is SPI instead of UART. I was looking at using ZigBee for a project that would need several dozen end nodes and was disappointed when I found out that Digi firmware limits the number to 8.
I’ve got one of those Microchip zigbee modules also, and a PIC32 to go with it. I’ve also got several of AVR’s RAVEN modules, but haven’t had too much chance to play with them all together yet as I’ve got a paying client to take of now - gotta keep the revenue stream going when the opportunity is there!