Zigbee is a popular technology for wireless sensor networks. Since one of the primary uses of Syntro is as a sensor network framework, it would be nice if Syntro worked with Zigbee. Well now it does!
SyntroZigbee and in particular the SyntroZigbeeGateway can provide seamless communications from applications running on a TCP network using a Syntro cloud to devices and applications running on Zigbee networks.
SyntroZigbeeGateway is a Qt application, with both a GUI and console mode. It can run on any platform that supports Qt 4.7 or greater and has been tested on Windows, Mac and Linux machines including small boards like Gumstix, Pandaboards and Beaglebones.
Here’s what it looks like in GUI mode running on a Windows machine.
And here SyntroZigbeeGateway running in console mode on a BeagleBone.
BeagleBones are convenient since they are 3.3v devices like the Zigbee radios and don’t require any voltage level translators when using the TTL serial lines. Of course, if you use a USB serial converter this is not a problem.
SyntroZigbeeGateway only works with Zigbee Pro radios (Series 2 or 2b). The radios must running API firmware.
SyntroZigbeeGateway supports sending and processing node discovery packets on the Zigbee network so it can provide the list of active radios to Syntro clients.
SyntroZigbeeGateway also supports NI or node identification packets and can be configured to update the Zigbee radios with human friendly names for display.
The devices running on the Zigbee network can be any device that can support a serial connection to a Zigbee. This could range from a PC to an Arduino as long as it can handle a few Zigbee API commands.
The gateway app and a few demo applications can be found in the SyntroZigbee repository on Github.
Some documentation can be found at the Pansenti site. It’s a little sparse at the moment, but all the apps build the same way as other Syntro apps. There is a .pro for qmake or QtCreator builds and there is a VS 2010 solution file for Windows builds.
There is a TODO in the repository outlining a few features and new modes we plan to add to SyntroZigbeeGateway.
More demos and most importantly more radios are on the way as well.
0 Responses to “SyntroZigbee”