Correct me if I am wrong. If I want to setup a mesh network, I will need XBee/XBee Pro Series 2 hardware and load Coor/Router firmware. Could I setup a mesh network if I only have XBee/XBee Pro Series 1 rev-B hardware? One thing I noticed there aren’t any coor/router firmware for Series 1 in the X-CTU program.
Or the only option for me, is to get Series 2 hardware?
I hope someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you are right. The documentation for the Series 1 hardware is horribly out of date, but Ive been watching this forum for a while now and I’ve seen nothing that suggests mesh networking to be possible with Series 1 hardware.
In fact, given the outdated documentation, I’m beginning to suspect that as far as Digi are concerned Series 1 is dead. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
Series 1 (802.15.4) is not dead, and no-one considers it as such. Mesh networking however is a discussion now relevant to series 2 (ZNet 2.5) or ZB firmware only, since the 802.15.4 “mesh” firmware was beta and became what’s known as “series 2” instead.
Thanks for the reply. So for a mesh networking type of application, XBee/XBee Pro Series 2 (ZNET 2.5 or ZB)hardware and firmware are the way to go.
Admin: thanks for that reply. I’m not merely reassured - I’m convinced. Since your reply I’ve been speaking to one of the resellers for XBees, and I gather that there’s been unusual demand for the Series 1 recently. So in all decency, please let me retract that “dead” comment. It was wrong, and I apologize for it.
Mind you, I’m not about to retract my criticism of the Series 1 documentation until that documentation gets updated… Given that the chip is so well-used, isn’t it worth keeping the documentation up to date in order to encourage even more use?
And by any chance, is there some lifetime previewed for this new ZB series?
Since Znet seems to leave pass to the newer ZB series, may we see another movement or can we consider the ZB series to stay for long enough?
I started with series1 hoping they were about to get mesh, which has moved now to series2… Since mesh was not in that modules besides the beta, I’m the one to blame here.
But it seems digi is recommending ZB series now, which is one more step to Znet, so I’m afraid of using ZB modules only to find them discontinued in brief.
The ZNet firmware was based on a proprietary mesh stack developed by Ember, whereas the ZB firmware is based on Ember’s ZigBee-PRO stack. Ember’s ZigBee-PRO stack includes a number of features that were not included in the proprietary Ember stack. These new features make the ZB solution more scalable, reliable, and easy to use than ZNet. The ZB modules will not likely be discontinued anytime soon.
Also, Digi has released a proprietary mesh solution (DigiMesh) on the series 1 (802.15.4) modules. See http://www.digi.com/products/wireless/zigbee-mesh/xbee-digimesh-2-4.jsp for details.
So, it is possible to use Mesh if I upgrade my series 1 to DigiMesh… as both have the same hardware… but when I try to do it I get this error :
Getting modem type…OK
Programming modem…Lost communication with modem
Write Parameters…Failed
And I can’t make a downgrade either (not sure if it’s possible too… so…)
But I can change the parameters:
Getting modem type…OK
Modem’s firmware not updated
Setting AT parameters…OK
Write Parameters…Complete
Is it a problem of my board or the maybe the cable? Or maybe the X-CTU?? because I had another XBee with an earlier firmware version and I could upgrade it… but I couldn’t be able to change it to DigiMesh…
Any Ideas?
Message was edited by: Alverick
If you can send AT commands to the module, you should be able to do a read of its current parameters as well. What version of firmware is on the module now?
I agree, the series 1/802.15.4 manual is in bad need of an update so hopefully that comes soon.
Here is the link to the updated manual, which covers the 1xCx firmware: