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[Reply #15 on:]

I guess you are telling me that these are all NOT Arduino designs. Is that correct?

None of them are designed by the Arduino team. None of them are sold by the Arduino team.

And, yes, I thought the XBee is for the Zigbee designs. But will it do WIFI so I can talk to it via my laptop or router. And, if so, can I run the IDE to communicate via WIFI - that's the bigger question?

There are number of XBee modules. Only one of them is a WiFi device. I don't think that you can program the Arduino via the XBee Wifi device.

The other real concern is in case of trouble when one manufacturuer points to the other's product as having the problem (although that may well happen anyway, I guess).

Yep. That's a problem, and likely to happen. Fortunately, the WiFi hardware has been relatively extensively tested, so it is known to work with the Arduino. Working with your sketch and your router is a whole different story.

Interesting comments. I'm getting the bigger picture of the Arduino world - not everything is "Arduino". Its not necessarily highgrade "professional" stuff, but then there are many shields and they aren't very expensive. The professional stuff may be nice to work with, but beyond the starter kits, the cost is much greater.

[Reply #16 on:]

And, yes, I thought the XBee is for the Zigbee designs. But will it do WIFI so I can talk to it via my laptop or router. And, if so, can I run the IDE to communicate via WIFI - that's the bigger question?

There are number of XBee modules. Only one of them is a WiFi device. I don't think that you can program the Arduino via the XBee Wifi device.

There is only one WiFi module from Digi Inc., the company that is also making the ZigBee modules but there are many Wifi modules in XBee factor. One is the WiFi Bee from Seeed Studio (http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Wifi_Bee), another one is the RN-XV from Roving Networks (http://www.rovingnetworks.com/products/RN_XV).

And, if so, can I run the IDE to communicate via WIFI - that's the bigger question?

If that means that you wanna upload compiled sketches through it, so I guess you might get that done with a RN-XV and a few wrapper scripts, at least on unixoid operating systems, I guess it's much harder to achieve the same with the Windows variants. If you wanna have the same convenience as with the USB cable (auto-reset when connecting) you'll have to add additional hardware at least but it might be possible although I never tried.

[Reply #17 on:]

If that means that you wanna upload compiled sketches through it, so I guess you might get that done with a RN-XV and a few wrapper scripts, at least on unixoid operating systems, I guess it's much harder to achieve the same with the Windows variants. If you wanna have the same convenience as with the USB cable (auto-reset when connecting) you'll have to add additional hardware at least but it might be possible although I never tried.

What additional hardware do you think is needed?

[Reply #18 on:]

You have to connect one of the GPIO of the RN-XV to the RESET pin of the Arduino, you have to ensure that this reset line is not connected to the RESET line of the RN-XV (else it gets reset when it should transfer data). You must have a connection GPIO9 to be able to set the device into Ad-Hoc mode (only in this mode you're able to control the device remotely). So your sketch must include a way to activate that connection or you have to change the bootloader to do so.
On the PC side you must have a way to activate that Ad-Hoc mode, reconnect to the device in Ad-Hoc mode reset the Arduino and then start to transfer the sketch.

You see it's not easy to hack such a possibility. When you have the hardware ready (I guess you'd have to make the Bee adapter yourself for that), you have a lot of software to do. If you really wanna update your sketches over WLAN, go for another module, although I know none that supports that out of the box.