Wireless between PC and Arduino

Wireless & IoT
1

Hey !!

I’m working on a project that will consist of two Arduinos, they are:

Arduino Uno

Arduino Lilypad

I will have sensors on both of these boards. Which is the best way to connect them to a PC, so that the PC can receive a continuous stream of data. I was thinking of using either Wifi or XBee, but I’m new to the Arduino platform and wanted more input. The distance is short, about 30 - 50 ft.

Thanks for any help !!

2

At what data rate? in bits per second.

Up to about 80k then XBee will work. If more then WiFi.

3

Advantages of the xBee:

  1. cheaper (I think)

  2. easier to program

  3. may not need a second arduino - series 2 xBees have analog and/or digital I/O pins built in, so for simple sensing/actuating you may be able to forego the uC on the sensor side.

  4. much lower power requirements, especially if you go with #3 above to skip the uC and use sleep modes. This is great if your sensors need to run off battery.

  5. portable - The system is self sufficient, no need for routers or other infrastructure.

Advantages of the wifi

  1. much higher bandwidth

  2. much easier to send data remotely over Internet

  3. possibly easier to communicate with computers rather than uCs.

4

I would chose wifi for all isìts advantages (as jgalak wrote)

  1. much higher bandwidth

  2. much easier to send data remotely over Internet

  3. possibly easier to communicate with computers rather than uCs.

5

Funnily enough, based on the limited amount of info in the OP (liliypad suggests something worn on the body, so likely portable and battery-operated, and a few sensors), I would likely choose xBee, for the reasons listed. :slight_smile:

To me, the defining question is bandwidth and destination of the data. If you need a lot of bandwidth (like video for example), then go WiFi. If you want to pipe the data to a remote computer (as opposed to one in the same room as the sensor platofrms), probably go WiFi as well. Otherwise, go xBee.

6

It completely depends on your throughput requirement. If your throughput requirement is low you can use Zigbee module and if your throughput requirement is high then you should go for WiFi module.

What are your throughput requirement?

7

I am curious, have you considered bluetooth between the PC and Arduino?