Chapter 1, A World without Wires, introduces the XBee platform and shows how to use the XCTU program to control and configure XBee modules. It covers the AT and API modes, firmware updates, and ZigBee network creation and security. It also shows how to transmit your first messages between two XBee modules.

Chapter 2, Collecting Sensor Data, provides more details on wiring up XBee modules, and introduces the xbee-arduino library that lets an Arduino take control of an XBee module. Reading a sensor, designing a packet format, and wirelessly transmitting data are discussed; thus, by the end of this chapter you will have a basic wireless sensor network where one or more Arduinos read temperature and humidity data and this is wirelessly collected by another Arduino.

Chapter 3, Storing and Visualizing Your Data, covers storing and visualizing your collected data with the Beebotte cloud service, using an Internet-connected Arduino and the MQTT protocol. Storing and visualizing your data on your own computer, using a Python program and database, are also briefly discussed.

Chapter 4, Controlling the World, shows how to let your network control things in addition to monitoring them, such as heating and/or cooling your house. Simple on/off control is covered in detail, either using a relay module connected to an Arduino, or using an off-the-shelf wireless power socket that supports the ZigBee Home Automation protocol.

Chapter 5, Standalone XBee Operation, lets you implement simple devices without using an Arduino, by letting the XBee module directly control or measure things. You will see how to simplify the relay module from Chapter 4, Controlling the World and add window open/closed detection to your network.

Chapter 6, Battery Power and Sleeping, discusses options for battery-powering your projects, as well as techniques to reduce the power used. This includes some hardware techniques, as well as applying various sleep modes to drastically reduce XBee and Arduino power usage when they are idle.

To upload programs (sketches) to your Arduino boards, you will need the Arduino IDE, which can be downloaded from http://www.arduino.cc Version 1.6.5 was used in this book, but it is recommended to get the newest version. This book assumes you are already familiar with this program and know how to write and upload a sketch, which will not be covered in this book.

For configuring and interacting with XBee modules, you will need the XCTU program, which can be downloaded from http://www.digi.com/xctu. Version 6.2.0 was used in this book, but it is recommended to get the newest version. No prior experience with this program is needed; it will be introduced in detail.

The example sketches in this book use a number of Arduino libraries. These libraries are:

In general, it is recommended you download the newest version of a library using the library manager in the Arduino IDE. However, if you run into problems because a library has made changes that are not backwards-compatible, it might be useful to test the exact same version of a library that was used when writing this book. These versions are shown above, but also included in the provided code bundle.

The introduction of each chapter indicates what hardware you will need for the examples in that chapter. This always lists the hardware required to build an example once, sometimes also sharing items between examples. If you want to expand your network to include multiple temperature sensors, window sensors, and so on, you will of course need multiples of some of the components listed.

This book is for those who have been playing with the Arduino platform and now want to make their creations wireless. There is no need to be a veteran programmer, though a basic understanding of the Arduino and Arduino programming is assumed. All examples make use of ready-made hardware, so no soldering skills are required and, electronically, things are limited to just connecting a few pins and wires. This book will also prove useful for anyone wanting to integrate XBee with microcontroller platforms other than the Arduino, since most of the advice regarding XBee is not specific to the Arduino.

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and configuration values are shown as follows: "Sending a packet is handled by the sendPacket() function."

A block of code is set as follows:

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
  digitalWrite(13, HIGH);   // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
  delay(1000);              // wait for a second
  digitalWrite(13, LOW);    // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
  delay(1000);              // wait for a second
}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

openssl rand -hex 16

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, also appears in bold like this: "Click on the Update Firmware button to replace the firmware of your device."

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