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Zigbee to Wireless Router?

Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:31 pm
by gray
Is anyone working on this or done it ? What I would like to achieve is a firmware mod for a standard wi-fi router to re-flash it and enable it to accept Zigbee info (one way info only in my situation as the application is a simple environmental monitoring project).

Do I have to wait for 802.15.4 ? Are there some alternatives to Zigbee that I should be considering? The over riding element is cost hence the need to deploy a simple and cheap DAQ interface. Clearly the overall objectives could be achieved with a money no object approach but I want to monitor a lot of individual sites and need a low equipment cost on each.

Any suggestions for further reading or contact much appreciated - Thanks

Re: Zigbee to Wireless Router?

Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:03 pm
by Digit
I don't think it's possible. Remember Zigbee can also operate at other frequencies, not just 2.4GHz. Zigbee and Wifi are completely different.
Wait for 802.15.4? It's already there... Zigbee is based on it... or i don't understand your question.
You want to monitor a lot of sites? Get the coordinator (ZC) connected to Ethernet and you're almost done.

Re: Zigbee to Wireless Router?

Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 6:08 pm
by gray
Thanks for the suggestion Robert and apologies that my question was badly phrased. I was secretly hoping to interface/combine 802.11 and 802.15.4 which I do appreciate are different animals. I was also vaguely hopeful that a theoretical idea of using modified WiFi router firmware could be persuaded to work as an interface between Zigbee modules and a hosted app on a remote server.

On checking the cost of a 'coordinator' I can see that going that route is a much more logical way forwards but I can't find any turnkey solutions yet.

My objective is to monitor as many 'home functions' as possible and just feed the data to a web page for each property. (I plan to monitor multiple properties and want to replicate a reasonably standard sensor lineup in each)

The Visonic equipment that many seem to be using looks a good choice but then I get caught up in running a Visonic receiver* + a further Oregon Scientific receiver for temperature info and perhaps yet another for door contacts ?? (one receiver for each frequency that my module sets employ) If I have to do that then the budget really gets out of control.

* Is it worth putting a zigbee module into the visonic PIR to remove the need for a further receiver?

Any further thoughts or guidance on a simply structured, easy to set up and reasonably low cost way forwards for my little project would be much appreciated. It doesn't actually have to be Zigbee based, will that make my life easier?

Happy New Year to all