Xbee

Hi,

is it possible to make a hotspot where mobile phones can connect to with the xbee module and xbee? Im planning to use the xbee pro 60mw pcb antenna - series 1 (802.15.4)(i want to control a robot with my mobile phone).

Yes it is possible. You need to build a WiFi or Bluetooth to Xbee hub.

Do you know how?

@ 91378246 - what type of phone?

We do if you are using a Gadgeteer board and modules to make the “hub”. More details would help. Also, a “real” name and more info in your forum profile would give us the sense you’re legit.

@ bill
Mainly a windows phone 8.1 and a android 4.4

@ ransomhall
FEZ Raptor mainboard and the modules are all Gadgeteer modules.
And my name is Jan :slight_smile:

Jan, simple to do with a xbee module and a xbee ble or bt module

Yes, but i want to connect via w-lan because of the range. The problems are that i don’t know how to make a hotspot with a xbee + module and I don’t know if a mobile phone can connect to this network…

What sort of range do you want?

I have read that the max w-lan range of a mobile phone is about 200m so I wan’t something about this.

Hi Jan, welcome to the forum.

Any reason you need xbee in particular. This is not a native format supported by phones.

We’re happy to help, but nobody is going to spoon feed you the right answers.

Hi, thank you.

I wan’t to use the Xbee module because of the range which isn’t possible with normal w-lan chips which are used on the Gadgeteer boards (as I know).

Ok, yes I agree you need the xbee pro or something non wifi/bluetooth to do that. If you can put up with an external antenna you will get better range.

It’s also worth considering the synapse-wireless rf modules. They can easily make the range and you can run simple python apps on them. Really easy to program.

Are you planning on making your own phone app?

Bluegiga now doe a BLE module with a 450m range ;D

1 Like

@ Justin - interesting. They have basically put a small power amp on the output so it slightly less low energy. Do phones have similarly high power output to maintain tx/rx parity or does this exdended range only work from one bluegiga to another?

@ hagster - I don’t know, trying to get some samples but they wont ship to the UK as they are restricted which is a pain as they are a Finnish company…

@ hagster
Thank you for that suggestion. I googled it and found this: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11279 .
In the description of if stands that it already comes pre-programmed. Is it possible to make a hotspot with only using the gadgeteer xbee module or do i have to buy a programmer?
And yes, I want to programm the windowsphone and android app by myself.

@ Justin
Good idea but a mobile phone bluetooth has a max range about 100m

You need one for each end of the link. You can get a USB stick version that works as a bridge to reprogram them OTA. I’m not sure how easy it would be to get this to talk to a Bluetooth or BLE module. They can do a transparent serial port mode very easily so if you planned on using BT SPP then it would be easy and probably wouldn’t require any gadgeteer stuff. I don’t know enough about your application to say for certain. For controlling anything more complex like a BLE module you might be best off with a gadgeteer module in the middle.

The synapse stuff is incredably simple to use for simple stuff and uses magnitudes less power than any NEMF solution availiable. Where it quickly falls down is for more complex applications as it’s only 8bit and the python subset of supports is very limited. I haven’t tried the xbee modules yet, but I know they are very capable, very popular and good community support.

At the end of the day, this is your project and we don’t have the details so you need to make your own design descisions.

Thank you all very much for your help. I will try to find a solution with your suggestions. I plan to have my project completed in about 10 months and then I may post it. :smiley: