I’m working with 2 Xbee Pro 802.15.4 modules with the latest firmware, transparent mode. I’d like to ask what does remote configuration require at each side?
I’ve read that remote AT commands work in API mode, so I think that it have to work if both ends are in API mode, but will it work if both are in transparent mode (of course with different command mode seqences), or will it work if only the command issuer side is in API mode? Is it absolutely impossible to issue a remote command from transparent mode?
The second problem is the security. Is it a way to prohibit of receiving remote commands? Do I think right that enabled AES encryption prohibits unauthorized changing configuration remotely (from the air)?
To (attempt an) answer to the first question, if the sender is in transparent mode then all characters sent into it through its uart will be transmitted to the remote. There’s no way to tell the sender “this is an API packet” without first switching it to API mode.
For the receiver, however, things are different. An API packet received over the air will be interpreted as an API packet regardless of whether the receiver is in API mode or not.
I’m less sure about the security question. I don’t know of any way to prohibit the reception of API commands, so maybe AES is the solution there. Perhaps someone else can add more - if not, I’m sure the excellent folks at Digi support would be able to help.
Thanks for your answer. It helped me a lot that you wrote that no matter which mode the receiver is working, it will interpret the command as an API command.
I got another XBIB-U, so I could try the transparent-transparent mode. Not a big surprise, it didn’t work. I’ve set one Xbee’s command mode character to 0x2d, and left the other’s on 0x2b, but it looks like that the module discriminates between incoming data on RX pin and incoming data from the air, and it didn’t go to command mode when the “—” was sent. Now I’ll do some experiments with the security. Thanks again for your help.