Dear folks,
as far as I can undestand, on Hydra wi-fi is supported via additional XBee adapter module (plus something other that I still have to figure out…), while on other boards like Raptor I can use RS21.
I see from descriptions that RS21 is a “real wi-fi” while XBee is “simply a WiFi to serial bridge”. What are the practical differences between the two modules? What I have to sacrifice if i choose XBee? For instance: will I be able to connect to my home wireless network, access the board from the internet, stream a small video?
With the RS21 board, you will be able to standard .NET sockets to communicate via TCP and UDP.
With the XBee WiFi board, your interface will via a SerialPort, and you will have to control the board via an ASCII command set. This command set is very similar to the commands that used to be used with serial modems for dial up connections. You will not be able to use the .NET socket interfaces. Typically, this type of interface is limited to one connection at a time.
I have found the serial type of interfaces to be painful to use. Given a choice, I would always use an interface with socket support.
Depends what distance your device need to communicate over, I agree using sockets via tcp/udp is better to use. But when devices communicate over longer distances that wifi could never manage, xbees work well if messages are small.
If you want to connect to your home network, your only choice is to use wifi rs21. xbees will only communicate to other xbees.
@ kiwi_stu - The original question was about using a WiFi module with an XBee form factor, which was controlled by a serial interface, versus the RS21 for WiFi communications.
