ParkingLotLust
Member
Hey guys,
I'm about to embark on a project with a friend of mine which will involve remote sensing. The basic idea will be to have nodes that are placed around the house, and run on batteries. They will wake up at a particular interval, sense, and transmit if what they sense matches certain criteria. Then they will go back to sleep. I plan to have 3-4 of these nodes, but it could always be expanded to more.
I've been reading about different wireless modules and trying to decide how best to communicate between the nodes and the internet.
In a perfect world, each node would have an 802.11 transceiver that would connect to my WLAN and would talk to a web server somewhere on the internet (so I could send an email/sms when the criteria has been met). However, I've been pricing out these modules, and besides being expensive, they require a lot of processing to send/receive.
Alternatively, there are the 802.15.4 XBee-type modules, and also the nRF24L01 from Nordic. I like the simplicity of these modules (especially the 24L01 - I've used this one in school before and it was pretty easy to set up, and I still have my driver code). The problem with this type of setup is that the modules will need some sort of base station, either with a cellular modem, 802.11 capability, or perhaps a wired LAN connection, in order to get online.
If you have experience in this kind of thing, I'd love your input.
Thanks!
EDIT: After lots more reading, I'm starting to lean towards the Microchip MRF24WB0MA since it's cheap, speaks SPI, and has a freely-available TCP/IP stack.
I'm about to embark on a project with a friend of mine which will involve remote sensing. The basic idea will be to have nodes that are placed around the house, and run on batteries. They will wake up at a particular interval, sense, and transmit if what they sense matches certain criteria. Then they will go back to sleep. I plan to have 3-4 of these nodes, but it could always be expanded to more.
I've been reading about different wireless modules and trying to decide how best to communicate between the nodes and the internet.
In a perfect world, each node would have an 802.11 transceiver that would connect to my WLAN and would talk to a web server somewhere on the internet (so I could send an email/sms when the criteria has been met). However, I've been pricing out these modules, and besides being expensive, they require a lot of processing to send/receive.
Alternatively, there are the 802.15.4 XBee-type modules, and also the nRF24L01 from Nordic. I like the simplicity of these modules (especially the 24L01 - I've used this one in school before and it was pretty easy to set up, and I still have my driver code). The problem with this type of setup is that the modules will need some sort of base station, either with a cellular modem, 802.11 capability, or perhaps a wired LAN connection, in order to get online.
If you have experience in this kind of thing, I'd love your input.
Thanks!
EDIT: After lots more reading, I'm starting to lean towards the Microchip MRF24WB0MA since it's cheap, speaks SPI, and has a freely-available TCP/IP stack.
Last edited: