Cheapest WiFi Module?

Hi fellows, ANybody here aware of the cheapest WiFi modules that would be around there? and would have suffiecient beef to be handled by a standard 8-Bitter like ATmega's?

This is the least expensive one that I know about (US $34.95):

You speak to it via a serial link; I have had no problems talking to it using the software serial library.

Good luck!

This one from Digi seems to be similar for the same price.

These are still expensive in comparison to this ElectricIMP module >> http://electricimp.com/ a complete single module consisting of Cortex-M3 and WiFi at about 25 USD, How they are able to get this price?

That's pretty interesting. I hadn't seen that before, thanks.

The cheapest I can find for it is $29.95 at Amazon, have you seen it for less? I may have to order one to check it out.

I'm not sure why there aren't cheaper WiFi solutions. Economies of scale?

Thanks again for the Electric Imp pointer.

Check ebay or other online shops for the nrf24l01 - should be about $2-3 :slight_smile:

Check ebay or other online shops for the nrf24l01 - should be about $2-3 smiley

The Nordic is a great module but it is not a completely functional plug and play module in that format. It requires peripheral components including some sort of PCB, adapter board, or socket to hold that dinky 4mm chip.

The biggest expense associated with building these types of functional modules is the PCB. If you total all of the components needed at wholesale price its probably about $5. So yeah its economics of scale as mentioned above. If you build ten of them you are going to pay a lot more than if you build 100,000 of them. This becomes really clear if you have looked into having PCB's manufactured either raw or populated.

You can find functional nRF24L01 modules on Ebay for less then 2$: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-4Ghz-nRF24L01-RF-Transceiver-Module-ISM-Breakout-/271095195228?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f1e88665c

I have played with them and used them in my robots. Big difference with a Wifi chip though...

I don't think nrf24l01 is wifi.

wrt routers for ~20$

oric_dan(333):
I don't think nrf24l01 is wifi.

Correct, the nRF24L01 is a wireless transceiver that uses the 2.4GHz band. Same frequency as Wifi but that doesn't make it a Wifi device. I have a setup at home were an ATmega328 with some sensors connected to it sends an array of data to an ATmega1284 through 2 nRF24L01 modules. That ATmega1284 sends data over I2C to an Arduino Uno with an Ethernet shield. The Uno writes that data to an sd card and runs a small webserver. Sounds complicated, but it wasn't very difficult to program. And I'm very new to micro controllers and programming.

You can find functional nRF24L01 modules on Ebay for less then 2$

I stand corrected! Awesome find. I'm tempted to buy 10 of them just to have them around!

I already have 2.4 GHz supporting nordic's nrf IC's but the reason I think they cant be used because they aren't 802.15.4 protocol supporting, what you folks say? have you used it as a WiFi?

They do NOT support Wifi. It's much simpler chip then Wifi chips... There is a reason they are that cheap :slight_smile:

I guess the arduino wifi shield is too expensive.... maybe use and XBee?

LimitlessLED uses internal wifi pcb modules that are less than $5USD in their LimitlessLED Wifi Bridge Receiver 4.0 http://www.limitlessled.com/shop/wifi-udp-receiver-bridge/, you can buy the whole thing for $17USD and strip out the wifi module board. If you email them, they can send you the datasheet and you can connect it to your local LAN using their LimitlessLED android or ios app, or http web admin that the wifi chip has. www.limitlessled.com/dev
The wifi module has GPIO, UART and PWM The model number of the tiny wifi pcb is HF-LPT100 Low Power Consumption WiFi Module, supports wireless-B/G/N
22mm x 13.5mm x 6mm
+3.3V power supply
There are even more nano wifi modules being released daily by hundreds of factories... If you find any, let me know, they are tricky to find in the huge population we now have on earth. its awesome that we now live in a world surrounded by extremely cheap nano wifi modules, they are out there... post here when you find them.

I also found this one, it is twice the price of LimitlessLED, but includes the Arduino microchip. $39USD www.spark.io

The NRF chips are NOT WIFI - never will be - and also they have attrocious range. The only practical use I've found for them is using the RF24NETWORK library to extend their range by hopping and even then they'll manage one thick wall at best. A cheap WIFI solution would be SO useful for so many things.

Peter, lots of people already mentioned that the nrf24l01 chip is not wifi. end of story.

Do you know of any nano Wifi chipsets?

It's a complete solution rather than just a WiFi chipset, but the Intel Edison will apparently include integrated WiFi and is tiny. They're apparently going to be available sometime in 2014, so would be worth bearing those in mind as a potential future option.