Xbee for Arduino Uno

Question

I'm very new to Arduino, and I was wanting to control my Arduino wirelessly. Some googling shows that there is a shield for Arduino called Xbee that allows wireless communication. Unfortunately, I just purchased the #1 shield without checking specifications, (went back later, couldn't find them :/) and now i have a shield that appears to small for my Uno. (XBee Pro 60mW Wire Antenna - Series 1 (802.15.4))

Some more googling showed results that this was indeed the right shield, but I don't see how since the pin pattern is about half the size as the female ports on the Arduino. Is this the right shield? if so, how do I attach the two pieces of hardware?

My arduino my xbee

Answer 1

What you have there is an XBee module. It is designed to plug into an XBee shield which then plugs into the Arduino.

So you need to buy more.

That's the bad news. The good news is that you have already bought the most expensive part, and the shield to go with it is pretty cheap.

Numerous people make the shields, such as:

• Sparkfun
• Seeed
• DFRobot

Also note that XBees talk to other XBees, so you need at least two of them to get any form of communication going. If you want to talk to your computer there is a device called the XBee Explorer which plugs into the PC to allow you to communicate with an XBee module.

• ruckus: So, would i need a new Xbee module for the computers side of communication?
• Majenko: Yep. You need two of the same modules to talk to each other.
• ruckus: great... this is expensive. :P thanks so much for your help