Cheapest WiFi Module?

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.

ok, thats nice, but what about the other hundreds of low cost wifi wireless-N chips that are already in production on sale since 2012. it seems most of these wifi chip companies have very poor marketing at best. It is just hard to find them. but there is already plenty that are producing hundreds of thousands of these wifi chips, they are turning up in 1,000s of different consumer products throughout 2013. please post them here if you happen to have the time to search for them and identify any.

ESP8266

You can find them on ebay for less than $4. Here's a video reviewing the module:

I bought a pack of 5 esp8266's from eBay last week and received them in just a couple of days. I paid $2.69 each plus $2.25 shipping. Can't beat that!

JasonA419:
ESP8266

You can find them on ebay for less than $4. Here's a video reviewing the module:

5$ Arduino WiFi Module!? ESP8266 mini Tutorial/Review - YouTube

wow, the video shows that there are some GPIO's available so you can do some of the work without needed to ever use an arduino.

Another good video below. I think the ESP8266 will quickly replace/obsolete the arduino wifi shield as a wifi option. Had to get an ESP8266 on ebay last night to tinker with. I like the standard serial TTL interface.

I may be a bit late to the thread, but hopefully this infographic helps anyone looking for a bluetooth/wifi module.

http://blog.upverter.com/post/102628581542/wireless-modules