I hope this is viewed as a good/natural thing. The curve always works out this way. mostly dabblers, fewer experts. Still not sure why Xbee isn’t “huge” even for the dabbling point to point folks. I mean, even simple solutions benefit from one device talking to another at the very least. WIFI (RS21) is waaaaay too expensive and overkill for simple messaging. That is why I thought Xbee would be dominating by now. In my architecture (being planned), I’m using wifi for a bridge between TCP/IP and Xbee. If an Xbee-only client needs something from the internet, it will call to a wifi + xbee enabled node. A bunch of minions that talk to the mother ship.
So when you say “expensive”, it is expensive to do what? Write an SDK to simplify advanced features?
And when you say there are “cheaper options” out there, what do you refer to? Nordic? I’m not seeing where its much cheaper, and even so, it’s even worse in regards to .NET library/developer support and libraries, facades, adoption, etc, no?
It sounds like the buzz around Xbee (no pun intended) has kinda subsided. Or any low power low cost RF for that matter. I’m up for participating on the project where I can. Just trying to get an idea of whether this is going to be widely adopted or flop to a halt long term.
Questions for the community about why adoption is slow might be:
[ol]Because Xbee firmware is too hard/messy (to njbuch’s point)
Because Xbee libraries are too hard? (Drivers/SDK not easy enough? Samples not easy or cover enough scenarios?)
Because the .NET libraries are not heavily supported/backed (went stagnant)?
Because you just need point to point (Mesh is a paradigm shift?)
Because Xbee is too expensive for simple point to point? (what is cheaper?)
Because you’re still building silo’d non-IoT connected projects?
Because there is no clear, easy, or standardized way to SECURE the messaging in RF projects?[/ol]
My hunch is that the top issues are #'s 2 and 6. And I bet fixing 2 would improve 6, just based on the fact that the easier something is to adopt, the more likely it is to in fact be adopted. But I dunno. I’d love to hear from the community.