ZigBee range tests

Wireless & IoT
1

Just thought I’d share…

Range: 2,400 ft.

Conditions:

Line of sight (LOS)

round-trip data loopback

Success if message error rate less than 5%

30 byte messages (looped back)

MaxStream XBeePro at 60mW

Site 1: 12 ft. elevation, 2dBi omni antenna

Site 2: 4 ft. elevation, 0dBi wire whip antenna

Also did tests with

1mW XBee modules

802.11b WiFi

and extensive tests with modules disbursed throughout a large RF unfriendly non-line of sight situation. Exceeded expectations.

As you’d expect, the 60mW radios have a huge advantage.

The 802.15.4 QPSK waveform and 2MHz channel BW allowed it to have far greater range in LOS and non-LOS vs. the 20MHz BW of 802.11 (@100mW).

2

Thanks fopr sharing, i just received my Zigbee kit in today and look forward to trying it out.

3

which vendor?

4

maxstream

http://www.maxstream.net/products/xbee/ … zigbee.php

5

What sort of range did you see with the lower end 1mW Zigbee module?

6

We have try thoses module in a building and it’s range is very limited. We have try radiotronics modules and have better range indoor.

juste my 0.02$

Dumarjo

7

dumarjo:
We have try thoses module in a building and it’s range is very limited. We have try radiotronics modules and have better range indoor.

juste my 0.02$

Dumarjo

you may have used the 1mW XBee modules rather than the 60mW XBeePro modules, correct?

for any ZigBee module, the reason for selecting them is the meshing capability of ZigBee, above all, versus the traditional non-meshing modules.

8

maokh:
What sort of range did you see with the lower end 1mW Zigbee module?

I didn’t try the line of sight tests, only non-line of sight.

RF engineering: the 60mW XBeePro are 18dBmTx power. The 1mW XBee modules are, of course, 0dBm. So there’s an 18dB difference in the link budgets. Each 3dB is twice power. Thus, the difference is profound.

For the few dollars’ difference, the higher power modules are preferred, unless the low power modules are in a mesh with inter-node distances of say 50 ft. The higher power nodes have far greater range in a less dense mesh, or in a longer point to point link.

Battery life is an issue with the higher power modules, if you plan to use battery power. With just a few transmissions per day, this is a non-issue. Otherwise, that’s the reason for meshing with the lower power modules.

9

i used the 60 mw and the 1 mw. The 60mW is better for sure. But with concrete, metals, the range is less that the radiotronix one. But is probably better in some configuration.

Dumarjo

10

could someone throw in some code as an example to setup and interface one with a pic

11

All the IEEE 802.15.4 / ZigBee modules I’ve used can interface using a serial port link from the module to a PC or microprocessor. The module can run in a transparent modem mode, as if it were a Hayes modem. So you just send/receive data on the serial port just like it was a modem. The choice of the far end is merely an AT command to set the desired destination module’s address. The scheme of “+++” break to configuration mode is the same idea as a modem. Conceptually, the destination address is like a MAC layer address in ethernet.

The modules can also run in a binary mode rather than in the transparent modem mode. Here, you create data frames with checksums and send them out the port.

This is point to point operation.

If you use the ZigBee capability in the modules, you can arrange for automatic mesh formation. In this mode, you address the destination using a network address, much like an IP address. MaxStream’s modules even have a symbolic network address name like a mini-DNS.