Building Wireless Sensor Networks

Chapter 1. Getting Ready

Let’s get right down to business. This chapter offers a shopping guide and an introduction to all the major components you’ll need to prep your networking toolbox with essential parts and programs. There are plenty of options, so we’re going to focus on just what you need to get up and running. Check the Appendix A for a comprehensive list of resources. For now, here are the essentials, distilled for your convenience.

Note

In this book we focus on XBee brand ZigBee radios because they have a host of features that make them especially easy for beginners to work with. Many other brands exist, however most are best suited to those with an electrical engineering background. If that’s you, the resource guide at the end of this book lists other ZigBee options you can consider. Professional engineers often prefer XBees for prototyping or anytime a reduced development effort makes them the most cost-effective option.

Buying an XBee Radio

Digi International manufactures a bewildering array of XBee-branded radios. All told there are at least 30 different combinations of component hardware, firmware protocols, transmission powers, and antenna options. We’ll first take a look at what’s out there, and then narrow that down to the devices we will be using in this book.

Hardware

There are two basic varieties of XBee radio physical hardware:

XBee Series 1 hardware

These radios use a microchip made by Freescale to provide simple, standards-based point-to-point communications, as ...