Digi's XBee Wall Router expands ZigBee network range

If you've been scouting an unobtrusive range extender for your ZigBee network, look no further than Digi International's XBee Wall Router. If you'll recall, this isn't the first ZigBee extender sharing the same name (acquisitions tend to do that), but this little bugger simply plugs into a standard AC socket and "patches areas within a ZigBee network where signal erosion or loss occurs due to distance limitations or air interference." Additionally, it serves to create "multiple pathways, increasing the redundancy of the mesh communications," and the US flavor even includes an integrated mounting tab to prevent "accidental unplugging." Sound like just what you need? If so, you can snag one right now for $79.

[Reid Conti @ Dec 11th 2007 8:20PM]

I guess I'm not on top of the latest.

I had no clue what ZigBee was, so I had to look it up.

I'm still not sure.

[Dan @ Dec 11th 2007 8:24PM]

http://focus.ti.com/analog/docs/gencontent.tsp?familyId=367&genContentId=24190
Heres an idea of what they do.

[Tachikomatic @ Dec 11th 2007 8:57PM]

ZigBee is pretty much a modular DIY home automation system.
This guy uses it for his online control:
http://www.komar.org/cgi-bin/christmas_webcam

[Cheeze @ Dec 11th 2007 9:15PM]

>Tachikomatic @ Dec 11th 2007 8:57PM

>ZigBee is pretty much a modular DIY home automation system.
>This guy uses it for his online control:
>http://www.komar.org/cgi-bin/christmas_webcam

no, that guy uses X10, which is a different technology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_(industry_standard)

[Tachikomatic @ Dec 11th 2007 9:54PM]

Ah, my bad. I skimmed this article http://www.embedded.com/columns/technicalinsights/18902431?_requestid=26430
and had thought I had read somewhere else that X-10 was just another name for ZigBee.

[Marcos @ Dec 11th 2007 10:01PM]

ZigBee is a wireless networking protocol stack. Like a very low power, very low bandwidth bluetooth. It's supposed to be cheap to implement as well. This makes it good for Home Automation applications but it's not at all a "modular DIY home automation" anymore than USB is a "modular DIY printing system".

[pvilleSE @ Dec 11th 2007 9:57PM]

The quick explanation someone gave me on it was that it is the open source equivalent to bluetooth. I haven't done much research on it myself so I hope thats right.

[Shane @ Dec 11th 2007 10:06PM]

Nobody cares about your website, nimrod. Quit spamming the comments!

[Daniel McKenna @ Dec 11th 2007 10:24PM]

Zig Bee is a really neat idea, and a pretty poor implementation. I used a number of these devices in a school project. They were used in conjunction with low cost DSPs to periodically monitor a bunch of sensors. They rely on a host, slave relationship and are pretty ideal, in terms of power for things like thermostat networks or for turning on and off lights in your house (Anything where a little delay is acceptable and bandwidth is not a huge concern). The problem is that the stack is still very heavyweight (At least it was a summer ago) It's not like an IC you can simply strap to a device, but rather a device you have to communicate with over a set of protocols.

I'd much rather see some sort of synchronized mesh network, where instead of extending the host device's range, you can add intermediate devices to relay messages, while still being able to limit the power consumption of the transmitters.

[b.waite @ Dec 18th 2007 12:38PM]

The protocol you speak of is most likely the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) protocol, which is the defacto industry standard for getting two components to talk to one another. Any peripheral IC needs to communicate with the rest of the circuit, and SPI is (by far) the easiest way to do that.

If you're serious about embedded electronics, you'd better learn to love SPI. You'll be using it a lot.

Also, ZigBee employs a mesh network topology, so you can extend the range of your host by adding more slave devices that are configured to be routers. In fact, that's exactly what this device is.

[Alex @ Dec 11th 2007 11:00PM]

As stated above, ZigBee is a super low power, low cost wireless technology. Transfer speeds are around 150kbps, so it is not meant to replace bluetooth, think of it this way: You would have wifi, then bluetooth would slot in below that, then ZigBee would slot in below that. Due ot its low cost low power consumption it can be thrown into almost anything. Range is short, but on a few projects I've done I've managed ~ 100 ft range from it, not bad for the power consumption! Further, ZigBee can be repeated. Applications? Well the intent was that by making it low power consumption and cheap, EVERYTHING could have ZigBee in it. I've heard its already huge in China, dunno if thats fact though. Some uses of projects I've seen are home automation (beyond too - automatically turning on and off outdoor lights and road ligths when a Zigbee enebaled car approaches), cell phone use (for instance if you don't need to talk hands free and you were in your car, your car could monitor your phone status on ZigBee, and then when recieving an incoming call hop over to bluetooth, thus conserving a ton of power), heck anything could have ZigBee in it.

[jrc @ Dec 12th 2007 11:56AM]

Wow lots of different responses. Mostly correct. Zigbee is somewhat similar to bluetooth except much more flexible, and yes slower but it was not designed for high throughput. You can buy modules that have different transmission power, Digi for example makes one that covers 100m and one that does 1 mile (Pro version) open air, and different frequencies 900MHz and 2.4GHz. The main advantage is that they offer mesh networks, packet rerouting, and you can address many more nodes (64000 I believe), and no you don't need a master/slave setup. Versus bluetooth which can only address 8 without some clever hacking, which is a big big pain. They are actually popular here in the states, but the reason you may not of heard of them is because they are typically used in factory settings, not consumer products. Think a long assembly line with lots of sensors all the way down it. You can have hundreds or thousands of zigbees (~$20/each) at each sensor with only one computer and the very end of the assembly line. Each zigbee can reroute the packets of the other zigbees, so even the nodes far out of wireless range of the main computer still gets their message back to the main computer. This is a huge advantage and a huge savings in cost for industrial use. Wireless coverage becomes a non-issue, especially with this product, it will just reroute if you do happen to have a dead spot.