XBee modules (from Digi) are ready-to-use radio modules that often implement Zigbee or the 802.15.4 standard. Their appeal: turning a serial link into a wireless link with almost no software effort.
How does it work?
They are used to replace a serial cable between two remote boards, or for telemetry. Range varies a lot from one model to another: from a few tens of metres to several kilometres in the long-range version. On the controller side they are driven over UART, which makes them simple to integrate: as far as the program is concerned, it is just another serial link.
See also
- Wireless technologies — hub: where XBee sits among the others
- Zigbee — the protocol many XBee modules implement
- UART — the serial interface an XBee module is driven through