SCADA, Telematics & GPS Technologies

This is an interesting blog post, mostly because the XBee Pro is rated at about 1.6 km line of sight. However this guy is claiming to get about 150m (~150 yards) before data gets corrupted….

So i have a side project that i’m working on, a wireless OBD-II scanner.  It’s pretty interesting and I have some guidence from a professor at WPI.  The wireless unit I chose to work with is the XBee PRO.  This thing is solid.  The development kit ($179) came with everything I needed to get started and get proof of concept.  I was transmitting wireless data within minutes of setting up the system.  The chip is extremely small, too, so it has a variety of applications.

Source: Zigbee News by Freaklabs

Some overview of Wibree vs Zigbee features:

• Wibree is a PAN (Personal Area Networking) technology
• Zigbee is a mesh networking technology
• Wibree is more power efficient
• Zigbee has got more range
• Wibree’s data transfer rate is 1 Mbps
• Zigbees Data transfer rate is 250 Kbps
• Wibree has got a star topology
• Zigbee has got a mesh topology
• Wibree uses bluetooth radio and can co-exist with bluetooth
• Zigbee needs its own special radio and has got no relationship with bluetooth