I’m working on a physical clock that also broadcasts time to the entire ITP floor via XBee ZigBee radio. The time signal can be picked up by any project on the floor that incorporates ZigBee, and used for anything from clock display to inter-project synchronization. The code is being written in PIC Basic Pro. At some point it may incorporate updates from NISTservers.
To pick up the signal at ITP, simply set the PAN address on your XBee to C or CC (the c is for clock). The signal is simultaneously broadcast to all 65,534 addresses within that network. PAN C is in a human-friendly format and PAN CC is formatted to be easily machine-readable.
This project interests me because it begins to explore how an object can share information on a network with other objects, creating a landscape of content from which other objects and people can benefit.
What ZigBee stack are you using (2006, 2007 or Pro) ? Do they all have the ‘C’ feature?