A few interesting developments have happened over the holidays with XBee radios.
- The company (formerly known as Maxstream) has rebranded the radios (formerly known as the XBee Series 2). From now on you’ll be calling them the Digi XBee ZNet 2.5.
- The XBee ZNet 2.5 name coincides with brand new firmware. This update includes bug fixes and most importantly, automated transmission of I/O readings from the analog and digital input pins. The firmware isn’t posted on their site yet, and it isn’t documented. If you’re at ITP, ask me for the 1×40 files. Otherwise, talk to Digi support.
- I’m working on a version of the XBee library for Processing to parse the undocumented ZNet I/O packets. That will get posted here once I feel that it’s working.
- We were able to get XBees running off of an unregulated rechargeable coin cell. The Lithium-ion 2450 works for about an hour in my tests, without sleeping the radios at all.
More to come…