Exploring XBees and XCTU
Introduction
Is your project being dragged down by wires? Looking for an easy transition
to wireless communication? If you want reliable, low-cost, bi-directional
communication at moderate speeds XBee may be the solution for you!
XBees are hugely popular wireless transceivers for a number of reasons.
They’re
flexible
– they send and receive data over a serial port, which
means they’re compatible with both computers and microcontrollers (like
Arduino). And they’re highly
configurable
– you can have meshed
networks with dozens of XBees, or just a pair swapping data. You can use
them to remotely control your robot, or arrange them all over your house to
monitor temperatures or lighting conditions in every room.
Covered In This Tutorial
The pair of XBees alone won’t get you very far. In most cases you’ll want a
separate module to interface with the XBee. You can use an XBee Shield to
connect an XBee to your Arduino. Or you can use an XBee Explorer to
connect an XBee to your computer.
The focus of this tutorial is to explain how to use an
XBee Explorer
with an
XBee. There are a variety of Explorer boards, all designed to achieve the
same purpose: to create a communication gateway between your computer
and the XBee.
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