Hello all:
I need to order a few more items for a project and wanted an opinion on hardware.
I would like to have an Xbee server/coordinator that looks after a herd of ardiuno-bees and serves webpages with the data and accepts some simple commands. All very text oriented and straight forward. Seems like a very simple project and pretty much along the lines of Building Wireless Sensor Networks by Mr. Faludi which I have read. The wrinkle seems to be that I don't, however, want to use a third party server like xively and would rather have a microcontroller attached to my local network serving the pages over the internet.
Given that this is a fairly popular project I have yet to find much information on a completed, working example so I wondered if anyone has any input?
My first choice is to use a Due that I already have with an Ethernet shield (don't have) connected to the router and serving the pages, accessible on the www through a dynamic DNS server. The pluses are that the Due has tons of memory and speed and it is the middle price solution.
A 2nd solution would be the wifi adapter from Adafruit with a Uno or equivalent. I would need to buy the wifi adapter but have various options for the Arduino portion. The Upside is the cost is the same as 1 and it is wifi. Downside is that the library is not yet working with the Due and I am worried about memory and speed issues with a run of the mill arduino.
The 3rd choice would be to buy a Yun as the server and use the due for something else. The plus is that it could be WIFI rather than hardwired. The part I am concerned about is putting another platform (and yet another variant of linux) in the mix. Note again that I don't want to connect to Trembo as many of the examples for the Yun do -- I want to serve simple webpages as painlessly as possible like many of the examples for the ethernet library.
The fourth choice, oddly enough, is the cheapest and that is to use a beaglebone I have laying around. I would have to try and find usable software for it (should have bought a V8!! -- I mean Pi). So far I haven't found the beagle bone to be anything like man's best friend but I am not a big fan of linux and this puppy has been more drudgery than fun. (I don't know if the Pi is inherently better but there seems to be far more software written for it).
If anyone has some comments or can point me to some resources I might have missed I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance...
Doug
I submit the first choice is the best, and maybe the only, choice. I can't comment on the fourth but the Yun and Uno are likely to leave you short of memory, and you already have the Due, which I understand is well-endowed. If you want to use WiFi, an option is to use an Ethernet card and a little WiFi repeater. It will probably be cheaper than a WiFi shield as well as a better bet.
Thanks Nick...
Due+ethernet is the way I am leaning. Wifi seems so much more hi-techier though (and there aren't any wires!) so I wanted to make sure it wasn't a lot easier than it looks. Doug
I guess the other option is to put up with the cost of the WIFI shield and use that with the Due. I can get the Ethernet shield nearly local but would have to order the Wifi from digikey. I could not find as much information about the Wifi combination as the Due+Ethernet though so I am not as confident.
Doug
DougMorgan:
Wifi seems so much more hi-techier though
There are more prosaic issues, though. WiFi with Arduino is famous for high prices and low reliability.
I used a repeater because I already had an Ethernet shield running, hence no additional software, and a short, shallow learning curve, but I think it is a good idea even if you are starting from scratch.
Thanks for the guidance.
I did get the Ethernet shield + Due up and running some example code with surprising ease. For the actual test I used a network bridge to a dumb switch from a PC connected to the network by wifi without any problems -- very similar to an access point or repeater setup. For the finished project it can go in the cabinet with the cable modem and router.
I also had little trouble contacting the ethernet shield through the greater internet. I bought a new wifi router to facilitate using dynamic dns without a pc and that seems to work smoothly. The trick is to get the port numbers right.
Thanks
Doug
DougMorgan:
I did get the Ethernet shield + Due up and running some example code with surprising ease. For the actual test I used a network bridge to a dumb switch from a PC connected to the network by wifi without any problems -- very similar to an access point or repeater setup.
Sounds pretty good. I didn't realise you could do that.
I think with a crossed-cable you can eliminate the switch but I did not try that. The network bridging function might also be one of the few extra features in the "Pro" versions of windows. It is simple to do once you get to the list of networks.
Doug