Electronic – arduino – Best choice for low-power, short-range wireless communication

arduinolow-powerwireless

I'm working on a project which relies on wireless communication, and I'm looking for the best alternative. These are the design requirements:

  • Is easy to interface with Arduino
  • Works over a small range (5-6 metres at most)
  • Consumes little power – the least possible
  • Devices mustn't interfere with each other
  • Doesn't need to be real-time, the delay can be in the order of hundreds of milliseconds
  • In general, the devices aren't within sight of each other (meaning IR and similar solutions won't work)

The scenario is:

About 10 devices in the same room, communicating with each other, sending short (30 characters at most) messages to each other once in a while, for a few hours (without changing batteries).

The best I could find is Bluetooth (BLE, specifically), mostly because there are a few ready-made Arduino+Bluetooth modules and the promising "Low Energy" label (at most half the energy consumption of normal Bluetooth), but I'd love to get an opinion from people with more experience in this field.

Best Answer

Take a look the XBee line of tranceivers. There are various types depending on the transmission range and desired power rating.

These devices also interface with Arduino projects nearly trivially. The Serial library makes use of the AVR's UART hardware which is directly compatible with the Rx pin of the XBee. Also note that no level shifters are needed because the XBee Rx/Tx pin work with 5V!

DO note, however, that the XBee must be powered with 3.3V, so a simple 3.3V LDO voltage regulator can be used.

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