Hello all, I'm thinking to use XBees in my project. In this project I want to have 5-6 arduinos in a "Star" layout. In the middle there will be a "receiver" and the rest will be "transmitters" (of course I need the 2 way communication, but the main role will be like I said before) . Now the point is that I see there are 2 types of Xbees, the normal (2mWatts) and the pro (50mWatts).
normal: XBee 2mW Wire Antenna - Series 2 (ZigBee Mesh) - WRL-10414 - SparkFun Electronics
pro: XBee Pro 63mW Wire Antenna - Series 2B (ZigBee Mesh) - WRL-10421 - SparkFun Electronics
The point is... I would like to use the "Pro" as the "receiver" in the middle. And the rest will be the "normal" ones (to reduce cost). The normal has a range of 120meters and the pro 1600meters. I'm calculating that the max distance between a normal and the pro in the middle will be around 300meters. So if the range of the normal is 120m and the range of the pro 1600m, will they be able to communicate in a distance of 300 meters? Does the range of the pro overlap the range of the normal and they can communicate in a distance longer than the normal's max? Has anyone tried this?
And one more question. Do xBees support actually encrypted communication?