Going Wireless

Although more ubiquitous 802.11b/g Wi-Fi shields exist for the Arduino (such as Sparkfun’s WiFly Shield), the most prevalent means of Arduino wireless communication is via XBee radios. The initial outlay for a set of XBee devices can be a bit pricey. This is because in addition to the XBee radios, you also need an FTDI USB cable to connect one of the radios to a computer to act as a wireless serial port.

The other XBee is typically connected to an Arduino. And to make it easier to make these connections, additional kits are available to mount the XBee radios to an assembly that better exposes the connection pins while also displaying data transfers via onboard LEDs. Such visual indicators can be quite helpful when debugging ...

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