Suggestions for wireless communication other than zigbee/xbe

Development Boards Arduino
1

Hello,

I’ve been trying to find some devices that will allow wireless communication between multiple arduino. I bought some nordic modules and had no luck with those. I also bought some of the 434/315mhz from sparkfun, but didn’t have any luck with those. Has anyone here had any luck with any of these? I’ve already googled everything i could and tried several different code snippits trying to get things going, but no luck.

I’ve had no issues with xbee’s but they would be cost prohibitive for my final project.

Any direction would be great. Thanks.

2

The 434/315mhz modules us OOK modulation therefore require special data encoding techniques for them to work reliably.

Here is a good thread:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=22407&start=0

Her is code that does work:

http://www.open.com.au/mikem/arduino/VirtualWire.pdf

3

If you want to use 433MHz, but don’t want to do the work of encoding / decoding, error detection / correction etc, you might like to look at the RFM22 modules Sparkfun sells:

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10153

$11.95 from Sparkfun, but much cheaper from the manufacturer if you get enough to make the shipping from China worthwhile:

http://www.hoperf.com/rf_fsk/RF22B.htm

4

The HopeRF modules look good. Popular. SFE sells the RFM12. HopeRF has many others.

I wish SFE would add more of HopeRF’s modules. They use ST’s chipsets.

Until SFE does, here’s one in the US with an Arduino AVR and a transceiver. An EU version for 868MHz is available from a different seller.

http://shop.moderndevice.com/products/jeenode-kit

5

For simpler applications I’ve used parts from Linx Technologies on many occasions. Everything is pretty easy to work with.

http://www.linxtechnologies.com/

-Bill