Hi,
I’m trying to start what I hope will be a network of many Arduinos in my house, each performing a task autonomously, but reporting status and accepting commands wirelessly via xbee.
I would LOVE for every bit of the xbee messages to be broadcast messages, so that ANY device could monitor the status of the other devices, so for example I could decide later to make a web-based monitor that would show the status of the garage door, without the garage door arduino having to have sent a specific message to each xbee that MIGHT want a copy of the message.
So, I’ve been testing with 2 xbees configured identically except for the “MY” id on them are different, 1, and 2.
From xbee #2, I can send
7E 00 0A 01 00 00 01 00 4F 50 45 4E 0D BE
which translates as a direct packet to xbee#1 with the message “OPEN”
THis message gets through to my #1 xbee EVERY TIME but when I try to BROADCAST the same message:
7E 00 0A 01 00 FF FF 00 4F 50 45 4E 0D C1
With destination FF FF instead of 00 01, the message is lost/ignored/corrupted about half the time. I know the message is correct because it works the other half of the time.
The 2 xbees are series 1 PRO versions, and are sitting across the room from each other, so range isn’t a problem. (I’ve tested it in direct mode WAY further in my house).
To me, it appears that the RF is just not that reliable, and that it’s working so well in direct mode because of the error correction that doesn’t occur in broadcast mode…
Is there anyone using broadcast mode successfully, or know what else could be wrong here?
-Steve