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Ivan Sergeev writes:
The Wireless Power Meter is a simplistic ATmega88p and ZigBee/XBee based true V-I power meter. AC voltage measurement is made from the rectified signal of a step-down transformer, and current measurement is made with the pass-through Allegro ACS712 Hall-Effect sensor.
Wireless Power Meter - [Link]
dangerousprototypes.com writes:
Travis Goodspeed has assembled this wardriving project covering the ZigBee wireless protocol. It is designed around the radio module from the TelosB, which is used to sniff for nearby ZigBee/802.15.4 transmissions. This module is connected via serial to a Roving Networks RN42 module which provides a Bluetooth connection to the Nokia N9. Travis’ GoodFET firmware natively supports the TelosB module, and complete instructions for building and flashing onto the module can be found here. He also developed both a command line and GUI client for the Nokia N9 in order to control the TelosB.
Wardriving for ZigBee - [Link]
element14, Microchip and Matrix introduce the new PIC18 Flowcode Developers Kit. Lowers the barrier to electronics design with easy to use Graphical Programming
30 January 2012 – London, element14, the first collaborative global electronics community from Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl), has teamed up with Microchip and Matrix to introduce the new PIC18 Flowcode Developers Kit. This innovative development and demonstration kit is designed to offer a hands-on, easy approach to electronics design using Flowcode, one of the world’s most advanced graphical programming languages for microcontrollers.
The development platform is based on a Microchip PIC18F26J50 low power, 8-bit PIC18F26J50 microcontroller, and is integrated with temperature sensor, capacitor touch sensor and potentiometer to help developers verify programs designed using Flowcode.
“The new PIC18 Flowcode Developers Kit is an innovative, fully featured yet low cost solution designed to help developers realize their designs in working hardware,” says Mike Powell, Technology Development Manager, Premier Farnell. “Optimized for Flowcode development, the board has several expansion options, it can be used as a black box and is mounted with a PIC 18 device that is low power, but high performance.
The competitive advantage of Flowcode is that it allows those with little-to-no programming experience to create electronic systems in minutes. Flowcode supports code generation for the PIC® (PIC12, PIC16, and PIC18 series ), PIC24 and dsPIC® series of microcontrollers. The professional edition includes drivers for a range of sub-systems including LCDs, keypads, seven-segment displays, ADC and PWM, as well as communication protocols including I2C, SPI, RS-232RS-232, Zigbee and TCP/IP, among others.
Flowcode is compatible with Microchip’s PICkit programmer as well as third party programmers. It is also compatible with the HI-TECH C compiler. A ‘Lite’ version of Flowcode 4 is included in the kit.
For more information visit element14.
What’s inside a smart meter? @ EDN. – [via]
The technicians at iFixit got their hands on an Elster Rex2 Watt-hour meter with features that an old-fashioned motor-driven meter lacks: nonvolatile memory with 1 million write cycles, advanced security with full 128-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption, the ability to make remote upgrades, and support for 900-MHz and 2.4-GHz ZigBee communication. The meter can also track overall power usage by time, which raises privacy concerns for some utility customers. On the other hand, some customers welcome the ability to parse their power usage to better manage it and, they hope, save money.
What’s inside a smart meter? - [Link]
Digi Launches Wi-Fi Version of Popular XBee Module, we’re checking this out shortly! [via]
Digi International (NASDAQ: DGII) today introduced the XBee® Wi-Fi, an embedded module that enables industry leading low power, serial-to-Wi-Fi networking in the popular XBee form factor. Because of the XBee’s common footprint and application programming interface (API), customers can now create a single board design for wireless products that supports 802.15.4, ZigBee, ZigBee Smart Energy, 2.4 GHz, 900 and 868 MHz, Wi-Fi and proprietary DigiMesh protocols.
“XBee modules offer developers tremendous flexibility and are extremely easy to use,” said Larry Kraft, senior vice president of global sales and marketing, Digi International. “By adding a low-power Wi-Fi module to the XBee product family we give customers the fastest and most flexible way to get Wi-Fi up and running on their systems.”
Ideal for energy management, wireless sensor networks and intelligent asset management, the XBee Wi-Fi offers 802.11 b/g/n networking and flexible SPI and UART serial interfaces. Because the module includes the 802.11 b/g/n physical layer, baseband MAC and TCP/IP stack, developers can add Wi-Fi to their products simply by connecting to the XBee Wi-Fi’s serial port. The XBee Wi-Fi is fully tested at manufacture and comes with modular certification for the U.S., E.U., Canada and a number of other countries, further reducing the time to market, development expense and design complexity.
Digi Launches Wi-Fi Version of Popular XBee Module - [Link]
BlueZigbee takes on and off commands from an Android phone and sets a GPIO pin on a remote circuit with this information, allowing for control of relays or other objects.
This program was written as a demo of how the BlueScripts Android application can be used in a simple embedded system to accomplish something useful without having to write any code for Android.
BlueZigbee: simple relay application - [Link]
dangerousprototypes.com writes:
KarlP from the website “False and misleading information” has written this AVR code library for the MRF24J40 802.15.4 radio chip.
The MRF24J40 operates in the 2.4 GHz band and supports ZigBee™, MiWi™ protocols and proprietary protocols. It interfaces with an MCU via a four-wire SPI interface.
Updated MRF24J40 library code - [Link]
The present document shows step by step how to easily build an interesting pointing device: the wireless tilt mouse, that allows to control the mouse’s cursor on the PC screen through the tilt of the board itself. The analog data from a 3-D accelerometer and from two push-buttons are acquired, converted and radio transmitted by an XBee module using the standard ZigBee protocol.
XBee Accelerometer Demo – Wireless Tilt Mouse Application – [Link]
fivevolt.blogspot.com writes:
My idea is to take this scale and add ZigBee wireless so that I can automatically capture my weight on my computer without having to remember it. OK lets backup. Why did I choose the scale above? The first reason I chose this scale is because it has an LED display. I knew this would make the task of hacking much easier because the chances would be good that the display would be 4 – 7 segment displays that I could easily read.
Zigbee-powered wireless scale – [Link]
There are two ways to learn PCB Trace Antenna Design. One is to go to the university the other is reading the article below! This article will guide you through “trial and error” approach to antenna design at the 2,4GHz communication band (wifi, zigbee, etc). The design procedure is clear enough and will help you save big time on your design.
The Dropout’s Guide to PCB Trace Antenna Design - [Link]
