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    Content by Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson
    E-Textile Tailor Shop by KOBAKANT
    The following institutions have funded our research and supported our work:

    Since 2020, Hannah is guest professor of the Spiel&&Objekt Master's program at the University of Performing Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin

    From 2013-2015 Mika was a guest professor at the eLab at Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee

    From July - December 2013 Hannah was a researcher at the UdK's Design Research Lab

    From 2010-2012 Mika was a guest researcher in the Smart Textiles Design Lab at The Swedish School of Textiles

    From 2009 - 2011 Hannah was a graduate student in the MIT Media Lab's High-Low Tech research group led by Leah Buechley


    In 2009 Hannah and Mika were both research fellows at the Distance Lab


    Between 2003 - 2009 Hannah and Mika were both students at Interface Cultures
    We support the Open Source Hardware movement. All our own designs published on this website are released under the Free Cultural Works definition
    Wireless

    Xbee Direct (Xbee-Xbee)

    Xbee can be connected directly like an invisible wire. You can set the matching pins as one of them as input (AI/DI) and the other as output (PO/DO).

    You can see this application in Wireless Tilt Sensing Bracelet,
     

    To do this, you need to change some AT command. To access AT command, connect Xbee with computer with dongle, if you are using PC, you can use X-CTU to program it. If you are using Mac, you can use XBee Terminal Max by Rob Faludi, or make your own serial terminal communicator with your favorite program. Here is a small max patch we use made by Ingo Randolf. You can use it with max/msp runtime (free) if you do not have max license.

    Here is an example AT command setup.

     [TABLE=5]

    The example is based on the I/O Line Passing example on the Xbee series 1 manual p14. 
    I/O lines are mapped in pairs. D0 input is connected to D0 output on the paired module. To enable the outputs to be updated, the IA (I/O Input Address) parameter must be setup with the address of the module. This effectively binds the outputs to a particular module’s input. The IU command enables I/O UART output. When enabled (IU = 1), received I/O line data packets are sent out the UART. 

    Actually the communication can be bidirectional, meaning both side can have both input pin and output pin.
    Here is an example setup. In this case, Xbee-A has D0 pin as input and D3 pin as output, and XBee-B has D0 pin as output and D3 pin as input. I first tried with D0 and D1 pin, but it did not work. It can be because the pins are too close (or maybe I had a bad connection on my breadboard…).
    Anyway, here is the setup table. I hope this info helps your little tinkering..
    And one important thing. The direct mode is only supported on Xbee series1. also, this this requires Firmware Version : v1.x80 (minimum). If you have very old Xbee series1, you need to do firmware update.

    XbeeA
    ATID>> 1234
    ATMY>> 5656
    ATDL>> 7878
    ATAI>> 0
    ATIR>> 14
    ATIT>> 5
    ATBD>> 3
    ATIU>> 1
    ATIA>> 7878
    ATD0>> 3
    ATD1>> 0
    ATD2>> 0
    ATD3>> 4

    XbeeB
    ATID>> 1234
    ATMY>> 7878
    ATDL>> 5656
    ATAI>> 0
    ATIR>> 14
    ATIT>> 5
    ATBD>> 3
    ATIU>> 1
    ATIA>> 5656
    ATD0>> 4
    ATD1>> 0
    ATD2>> 0
    ATD3>> 3

    7 Comments so far

    1. Joseph on December 28th, 2009

      Is it possible to do i/o line passing (like in your wireless tilt braclet example) with the seris 2 xbee modules? All I need my xbees to do is send the voltage change from some analog sensors (In pin D0 at the remote site OUT pin D0 at the base. I have all the interface set up to interpret the voltage, I just want to make it wireless!!!). Do you have any insght? From looking around the web, it seems that I may have to buy the series 1 modules.

    2. Grant on January 3rd, 2010

      From what I read and tried, you can *not* do line passing with series 2. I bought a couple series 1 and I’m trying to get it working now. Series 2 doesn’t even give you the option to configure line passing commands.

    3. djo on September 23rd, 2010

      Is it possible to do line passing with one base and two or three remotes (to control multiple lights with one switch for example…) ?
      I’m tinking about broadcasting…
      I didn’t find the answer in the digi’s datasheet…

      thanks!

    4. senj on October 27th, 2010

      Line passing and series 2 (ZNET 2.5 COORDINATOR AT version 1047) :

      I/O Settings -> I/O Sampling -> IC – Digital IO Change Detection

      Bitfield that configures which digital IO pins should be monitored for change detection. If a change is detected on an enabled digital IO pin, a digital IO sample is immediately transmitted to the address specified by DH DL.

      RANGE:0-0XFFFF

      You also need to enable digital pin for input.

    5. Bn4al on June 19th, 2012

      hi,

      i would like to control an LED using xbee series 1.

      the LED is connected to pin 20 D0 on the end device module which is powered via a 3.3V battery whereas the coordinator is connected to my pc.

      the actual code am using through X-CTU is like this :

      ATD04
      ATCN

      thats really working but am guessing that its wrong as both the coordinator and the end device pin 20 D0 react the same.

      Can someone please help me out?

      thanks

    6. Temoor on August 16th, 2012

      Anyone know how to communicate Xbee to Xbee on a Makey Makey?
      What Im trying to do is make a wireless mouse/keyboard by using a makey makey but would rather be wireless. So, I would act as ground and my wireless mouse/device will have the transmitting xbee and the receiving xbee would be attached to makey makey and hopefully work like a invisible wire and therefore closing the loop?

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