XBee Shield for Arduino

XBee is an ingenious solution to low cost wireless data transfer, and has mostly been designed for high throughput, low-latency data transfers between nodes, devices and other electronics connected to the “Swarm”. However, it’s not always easy to integrate other projects into XBee swarms or hives, which is why DFRobot have brought out this great Arduino Shield succinctly named the XBee Shield for Arduino, which makes communication between Arduino and XBee simple.

With the XBee Shield for Arduino, you can take your WiFi-based XBee boards and integrate their network into existing WiFi, Bluetooth or Zigbee networks, offering ultra-low power consumption as it mediates the provision of critical data between various devices, acting as a global translator that allows all of the different communication methods to effectively work together.

This shield features an onboard 3.3V/5V voltage converter to support communications modules and Arduino Boards alike, and it can be directly stacked on top of an Arduino UNO, Leonardo or Mega without any required modifications or alterations. And finally, just to make the deal even sweeter, this shield also supports ESP8266 WiFi Bee Modules, meaning that you can connect all of your different projects together, to all work together and allow for seamless interoperability regardless over a wide range of communications techniques.

Typical Applications for XBee Shield for Arduino:

The XBee Shield for Arduino is a fantastic shield made by the people who LOVE electronics and robotics – DFRobot – and this shows through in the quality of design as well as the many small quality-of-life features that make it relatively easy to work with even for beginners (with a bit of patience of course).

As such, the XBee Shield for Arduino could be used for both simple and advanced projects, although they tend to lend themselves better to advanced communications projects, in which multiple nodes, devices or other electronics need to effectively communicate in ways that they aren’t natively designed for. In such scenarios, these XBee Shields can bridge the communications gap between various projects or systems, allowing for all of your projects to work together like a sort of hive-mind, seamlessly operating in a beautifully interconnected way.

Additional Resources:

• The Github Repository with Arduino Libraries for the XBee Shield.
• Arduino and XBee Tutorial and usage overview.

As self-proclaimed “Robo-holics”, DFRobot is a company comprised of over 100 staff members, of which 30% are engineers who love to build robots. It was started in 2008 with the goal of embracing and promoting open-source hardware, with a core focus on Arduino, Raspberry Pi and their very own LattePanda development boards. Since then, DFRobot have manufactured over 1300 unique modules, sensors and components that all work together and complement each other, allowing users like us to enjoy a full spectrum of cutting edge robotics and electronics without having to pay premium prices.

With the primary goal of developing and manufacturing great quality products, while making them accessible to as many people as possible, DFRobot are rapidly becoming one of the most common-place brands in the world of open-source robotics and electronics. With more than 1300 products developed in-house, and an impressive range of different categories and specialisations, there are few brands in the world who can compete in terms of quality, accessibility and genuine innovation.