ZigBee Internet Gateway

I’ve written a ZigBee Internet Gateway for the ConnectPort X2 so that any device at ITP can connect directly with the Internet. This system is now being beta-tested at ITP. Plain URLs sent from a ZigBee (Series 2 XBee ZB) radio are processed by the Gateway, retrieved from the Internet, and results are returned to the sender.

To use the gateway you need to:

1. Configure your Series 2 radio as a ZB firmware Router or End-Device
2. Switch the PAN to AAAA: ATIDAAAA
3. Set your radio to 115200 baud: ATBD7
4. Set the destination address to zero: ATDH0  and   ATDL0

When you’re ready to go, attach the XBee to your Arduino’s hardware serial port (pins 0 and 1), then send a URL and you’ll get back the response. For example to send your request from Arduino:

Serial.println(“http://www.faludi.com/test.html”);

And to read the response back:

if (Serial.available()) {

char inChar = Serial.read();

print ( inChar );

}

Of course, you’ll be doing something way more interesting than just that! Send me any sample code and I’ll post it here for others to peruse.

Some useful things to know:

• currently supported URL formats (items in [] are optional):
  • http://host/path[:port]
  • https://host/path[:port]
  • ftp://[username:password@]host/path[:port]
• sending help will get the current help file from the gateway
• baud rates lower than 115200 will work if the results you’re getting are brief
• the software is still under development and may go offline for improvements from time to time
• right now error messages are displayed raw. You can ignore the specifics which are solely for our debugging