I’m working on a project and I need to get two ZigBee modules to be able to send and receive information between eachother. Right now I’ve been given the XBee Series 2 on an Arduino board. However, I can’t find anything about the Series 2. Is series 2 discontinued? Is it another name for XBee pro or something like that? Please help me figure out what it is. And any help telling me how to get the two dongles to communicate would be welcomed as well. Thank you.
There are two hardware variants: series 1 and series 2. They’re both in production and likely to stay that way.
The series 2 can take either of two firmware types: ZNet2.5 or ZigBee. The ZigBee firmware is the more recent and is recommended for new projects. For either type you can download the product manual for the firmware from the Digi website.
You’ll need the X-CTU program (free from the Digi site) to find out which firmware you have. Then if it isn’t the most recent you can use X-CTU to upgrade it.
The main difference between series 1 and series 2 XBees is that series 2 can do routing (though that also applies to series 1 with Digimesh firmware loaded). Routing means you can have physically larger networks, because the nodes don’t all have to be in direct communication with each other.
If you won’t be needing to transmit over long distances you could consider replacing the series 2 XBees with series 1 models using 802.15.4 firmware. The absence of routing makes them much easier to use (in my humble and probably biased opinion).
As for XBee Pro, that refers to a hardware variation on either the series 1 or the series 2, allowing higher transmit power and providing greater receiver sensitivity.