Cerb / Hydra Xbee Wifi :)

Ok, you knew it was coming!

The website recommends the GHI xbee module to support wifi on the Cerb and Hydra. I picked that up, and the Xbee wifi module (with the wire antenna). I got the OEM part, not the Roving Networks one.

Is there actually a Wifi driver for this? If so, how can I find it? Additionally, any examples of reading data from a URL?

Thanks!

Ken

@ Soulhuntre - Welcome,

Do you have 2 xbee modules?
They are not wifi they are Uart radios so you need one on the Cerb and one on a PC.
You communicate via serial.

In fact they are Wifi modules, as recommended by GHI.

802.11N

Ken

@ Soulhuntre - i happily stand corrected :slight_smile:

No problem, it really isn’t the kind of thing Xbee is known for :slight_smile:

I was pretty happy to realize it existed. Now I just need to make em work :slight_smile:

Ken

After a quick read it appears you just need to send serial to the device from the uC?

@ Soulhuntre - This module is not yet supported. The driver for the XBee modules can be found here

http://xbee.codeplex.com

Did you download X-CTU and tried to connect the module with your wifi network?

Hmmm… while I certainly understand, and the GHI stuff is cool - but that really should have been much clearer on the description of the boards I think :slight_smile:

[em]“Ethernet support is available through Ethernet ENC28 Module. WiFi support is available through XBee Module.”[/em] - strongly indicates that Wifi is available at this time. If the real state is “No wifi support exists at this time but is coming soon” then it should say that.

Not yet. Until I can be sure there is support, I want to leave them packed up so I can return them to GHI and Adafruit, respectively.

Please don’t misunderstand, I am REALLY digging the Cerberus and Hydra - but the timescale of my project is immediate.

Ken

@ Soulhuntre - What are you trying to achieve Ken?

@ Soulhuntre - I have a better idea :slight_smile: what about we refund your money and keep the board as a gift but in return you write the drivers for the community?

By the way, I think someone already wrote the drivers for roving networks. I just do not remember where the code was! Anyone remembers?

LOL that would be a great idea / project but I might not be the right guy to implement a wifi stack :slight_smile: You want high scalability apps under Azure or high turn around render farms? I am your guy though :slight_smile:

Seriously, I thought there were some “almost done” stacks? I’ll go look at them and see what a driver would need to do for it. Maybe I have the time to get one going. And don;t sweat the refund, I am sure eventually the investment will pay off in any case. I’ll just hang onto it all.

Ken

Short term?

I want to get a single number by poking a URL over wifi and reading the returned data. Literally, that is it to start with.

Ken

There is no need for wifi stack as the module has everything. It is few AT commands to open a connection. Am I missing something?

You’re way ahead of me on this - I’ll poke into the docs and see what I can put together. If it really is some wrappers around the AT stuff to manage the wifi connection and then convenience functions to wrap basic web connections (get, maybe post etc) then I can handle that :slight_smile:

I’ll look it over as soon as I find some docs. I never worked with Xbee or Gadgeteer before yesterday so I am still building my reference bookmarks.

Ken

Easy! ftp://ftp1.digi.com/support/documentation/90002124_B.pdf

Found the code for wifly roving networks http://netmftoolbox.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Toolbox.NETMF.NET.WiFlySocket

That is good stuff! I sent a note to RovingNetworks to find out if the Xbee module is WiFlyGSX compatible. If so, or if the communication is even CLOSE then it is much more tame than the digi versiona nd I might just switch to them :slight_smile:

I’ll look at the digi docs later as well, figure out how to even talk to the module at all and start poking at it. For now, some break time!

Ken

@ Soulhuntre - I’m the guy currently tapped to write the WiFi drivers. Just to clear things up, there is nothing preventing anyone from using the module on a Cerbuino. The command set is well documented. The “driver” will essentially be a fancy wrapper that makes it simpler to use. Gralin and I are the keepers of the xbee.codeplex.com project, which is where the source will live. He did the majority of the (outstanding) work for the Zigbee modules. I’ll be using the same design patterns for the WiFi code.

We could really use your help on the project!

Sure thing. I would be happy to help! I have lots of C# / .net experience but almost no gadgeteer / xbee. I’ll start lookign over the code and see how I can accelerate things. Hit me up at soulhuntre@ soulhuntre.com or soulhuntre on skype any time if you want more direct comms. That goes for anyone else as well :0

Ken

So I have been playing around. My first plan was to just ‘+++’ and get an ‘OK’ from the Xbee Digi Wifi module. I did not add any third party libraries, just stayed with the straight install just so I could get a feel of it.

So I created a simple config with a Cerberus, a button, 2 led’s and a Xbee / Wifi module. All the code is here http://pastebin.com/KprUUDcd and this is the output when I run it…

And when I press the button, I get this…

So clearly I have an error. Still, I am enjoying working on it :slight_smile:

Ken