FEZ Cerberus Mainboard with WiFi module

Archive
1

Hi!

I was just about to purchase the FEZ Cerberus mainboard, but then I saw in the mainboard’s overview that it supports WiFi only through XBee module.

After searching about the XBee module in the forum and at the internet, I saw that in order to create a “real” XBee WiFi, I need the XBee-WiFi module (which I don’t see at the catalog).

Can someone help me decide what to do? Basically I have a project which needs a WiFi connection (controlling through my smartphone).
I saw the WIFIRS21 module, but he’s much more expansive than the XBee module - one project and I’ll have to buy another one

Thanks!

2

Welcome to the forum ;D

Maybe this is another option for the wifi, as far as I know the RS21 doesn’t work with the cerberus. But the IoT Labs one does.

https://www.ghielectronics.com/community/forum/topic?id=15682

Or if you are in a close range between your smartphone and the cerberus, bluetooth modules might be a possibility. Justin’s bluetooth smart module works with all my mobile devices.

https://www.ghielectronics.com/community/creations/entry/20

3

Or you can try this

https://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/314

https://www.ghielectronics.com/community/codeshare/entry/927

4

Welcome YairRipshtos,

For WifiRS21, you need at least Fez Spider.
WifiRS21 is perhaps expensive but you only need one module. With Xbee module, you need one for GHI and a real module to connect on it.

5

The IoT Labs module works well with the Cerberus mainboard. In fact it is what we used to develop the module. The modules are built on demand in batches. I’ll be starting a new batch at the end of the year. Price is $58.00 (US) + shipping.

6

Thanks all!

After looking at all the replies, it seems that those are my options -

  1. If I’ll stay with the FEZ Cerberus mainboard, I can choose between the two -
    a. XBee adapter module + XBee WiFi module (6$ +35$ = 41$ + shipping).
    b. IoT (58$ + shipping).

  2. Buy a different mainboard (such as FEZ Hydra+ / FEZ Spider) and add one of those -
    a. XBee adapter (6$ +35$ = 41$ + shipping).
    b. IoT (58$ + shipping).
    c. WiFiRS21 (78$ + shipping).

Right?

So If you had a small project (that will be used in my home - means it will be permanent), that needs a WiFi connection, what would you do?

Thanks!

7

Hydra does not support wifirs21.

Why not cerbuinonet ?

CerbuinoNet has ethernet and wifi connectivity on board, so you only need two additional xbees ?

8

Just looking at the FEZ Cerbuino Net -

The overview says it has only Ethernet connection, without WiFi connection, am I right?

But then I found some old post from someone that used the FEZ Cerbuino BEE board, with XBee WiFi module RN-XV (XBee footprint).

What do you think?

9

Well, it’s all up to the project you want to accomplish.

CerbuinoNet ->
ethernet on-board (if you wanna go wifi you need additional)
xbee module

CerbuinoBee ->
need only xbee, socket is on-board
wifi serial as f.e. IoTLabs
or
wifi xbee RN-XV, socket on-board
for xbee need extra xbee module

Cerberus->
need extra xbee module for xbee communication
need extra wifi (IoT Labs f.e.not RS21)

but if you need to communicate with your mobile device only and it supports bluetooth low energy then you only need a bluetooth module to talk to your device no matter what board as long as it has a serial socket/connection available. however, BLE has limited range, and can be seen in the PAN area (meters of range, 10 or so for a standard module, or you need BLE121LR for a 450 meter range, but I’ve seen no gadgeteer module for it yet)

But like said in the beginning, it depends a bit on what your project goal is.

Be aware that the cerb40, cerberus, cerbuinobee, cerbuinonet are very limited in resources. You might wanne have a look on that as well.

10

The Hydra and Raptor do not support the IoT Labs module as the hardware handshaking does not work. GHI may fix this issue with a future firmware update.

11

@ munderhill, could you be a little more specific. Are you using the UART interface on the WF121 and is that why the hardware handshaking doesn’t work?

12

@ Jason - That is correct, but it is actually a GHI issue. The Ceberus, Cobra II, and Cerb40 II work fine.

13

It’s even a documented feature, even in the latest 4.3.6.0 SDK. You can read it in the 4.3 SDK folder in the Release Notes.

Now, I can’t even get my raptor to up to 4.3.6.0, the hydra+ did well … doesn’t matter much since they don’t like IotLabs Wifi either …

So, waiting for an update again and back to the RS21, that at least works for the raptor.

14

@ munderhill - any plans to build modules/drivers to use SPI or I2C connectivity of the BG module or are you sticking to UART only?

15

@ Jason - Not at the moment as Bluegiga’s BGAPI is not fully functional on other interfaces.

1 Like
16

@ munderhill - Spider too?

17

@ Jason - I don’t have a Spider to try it with.

18

The RN171 ( RN-XV ) is not so bad as well. Here running as a kind of WiFi Http-Server on a Raptor without hardwareflowcontrol, baudrate 57600. The PC Http-Client runs repeated requests for an .jpg file of about 10kByte.

Edit: Does not run “for ever” without crashes but it’s on the way.

19

I did just a mini test on a spider + IotLabs Wifi module connected to socket 4 …

And after an hour fighting with my network/ap/dhcp config I found that the AP I was using does NOT (edited) passthru to DHCP and the device didn’t get an address, so it seemed it was frozen but didn’t. It connected allright but never got the address back so I assume that this causes the OnConnected event to raise but that never came …

So after I fixed that one … it runs on a spider with the SDK 4.3.6.0 in plain netmf …

My VS2013 isn’t working anymore, so I had to make it in VS2015, hense the plain netmf …

[quote]The thread ‘’ (0x2) has exited with code 0 (0x0).
06/01/2011 00:33:22 Board: GHI Electronics FEZ Spider 1.0
06/01/2011 00:33:22 OEM : Copyright (C) GHI Electronics, LLC
06/01/2011 00:33:23 SDK : 4.3.6.0

06/01/2011 00:33:23 Preparing the network…
06/01/2011 00:33:23 Hi guys …

06/01/2011 00:33:42 Spider & IotLabs Wifi calling from: 192.168.39.18
06/01/2011 00:33:43 According to NTP it is Sunday, 14 December 2014 21:17:13 CEST
[/quote]

As a comparison I did the same with an RS21:

[quote]The thread ‘’ (0x2) has exited with code 0 (0x0).
06/01/2011 00:00:06 Board: GHI Electronics FEZ Spider 1.0
06/01/2011 00:00:06 OEM : Copyright (C) GHI Electronics, LLC
06/01/2011 00:00:06 SDK : 4.3.6.0

06/01/2011 00:00:06 Preparing the network…
06/01/2011 00:00:08 Joining … AK16
06/01/2011 00:00:15 Network joined.

06/01/2011 00:00:15 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:15 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:16 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:16 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:16 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:16 Network availability = True
06/01/2011 00:00:16 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:17 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:17 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:17 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:18 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:18 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:18 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:18 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:19 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:19 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:19 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:20 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:20 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:20 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:20 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:20 Network address change
06/01/2011 00:00:21 New address for the Network Interface
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Is DHCP enabled: True
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Is DynamicDnsEnabled enabled: True
06/01/2011 00:00:21 NetworkInterfaceType 71
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Network settings:
06/01/2011 00:00:21 IP Address: 192.168.39.19
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Default Gateway: 192.168.39.123
06/01/2011 00:00:21 MAC Address: 00-23-A7-1E-45-B9
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Number of DNS servers: 1
06/01/2011 00:00:21 DNS Server 0:192.168.39.123
06/01/2011 00:00:21 ------------------------------------------------------

06/01/2011 00:00:21 Grabbing the time from … de.pool.ntp.org

06/01/2011 00:00:21 Date and time updated thru NTP

12/14/2014 21:39:35… the On-Board LED should be blinking now …
[/quote]

1 Like
20

As a comparison I did the same with an RS21:

[quote]The thread ‘’ (0x2) has exited with code 0 (0x0).
06/01/2011 00:00:06 Board: GHI Electronics FEZ Spider 1.0
06/01/2011 00:00:06 OEM : Copyright (C) GHI Electronics, LLC
06/01/2011 00:00:06 SDK : 4.3.6.0

06/01/2011 00:00:06 Preparing the network…
06/01/2011 00:00:08 Joining … AK16
06/01/2011 00:00:15 Network joined.

06/01/2011 00:00:15 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:15 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:16 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:16 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:16 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:16 Network availability = True
06/01/2011 00:00:16 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:17 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:17 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:17 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:18 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:18 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:18 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:18 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:19 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:19 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:19 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:20 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:20 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:20 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:20 Waiting for network address …
06/01/2011 00:00:20 Network address change
06/01/2011 00:00:21 New address for the Network Interface
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Is DHCP enabled: True
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Is DynamicDnsEnabled enabled: True
06/01/2011 00:00:21 NetworkInterfaceType 71
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Network settings:
06/01/2011 00:00:21 IP Address: 192.168.39.19
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Default Gateway: 192.168.39.123
06/01/2011 00:00:21 MAC Address: 00-23-A7-1E-45-B9
06/01/2011 00:00:21 Number of DNS servers: 1
06/01/2011 00:00:21 DNS Server 0:192.168.39.123
06/01/2011 00:00:21 ------------------------------------------------------

06/01/2011 00:00:21 Grabbing the time from … de.pool.ntp.org

06/01/2011 00:00:21 Date and time updated thru NTP

12/14/2014 21:39:35… the On-Board LED should be blinking now …
[/quote]
[/quote]

@ PiWi - Awesome news!!!