Realtime serial with Wi-fi? Help!

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EmiliaT
 
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Realtime serial with Wi-fi? Help!

Post by EmiliaT »

Hello Adafruit community!

At the moment I would really appreciate your experience and insights about going wireless. I’m working on the topic of “remote presence” and have so far built a set of tangible objects that talk to each other via Bluetooth. Here are somepictures, video and other material: http://dasein-tokyo.tumblr.com/

In a nutshell, serial-in (pressure or heartbeat) in one location causes an effect in another (ex. sculpture leds gradually light up). I have used different Arduinos (Uno, Fio and Lilypad), programmed with Arduino IDE and connected to each other with Xbee-modules (of Series 1).

Locally communicating objects – check! But I have almost lost hope with upgrading from Bluetooth to Wi-fi (which would allow actual use in real life…)

The problem seems to be the speed in which the serial input can be sent; most wifi-solutions (that I’ve found) allow only periodic measurements instead of real-time analog serial. (With xbees the baudrate was as high as 115200, which maybe be not necessary…)

Do you know if this kind of object-to-object serial communication is even possible with wi-fi (for a beginner like me)? Could Xbee Wifi with Etherios Cloud service or Electric imp do the trick?

I'm all ears to any ideas and suggestions...
Looking much forward!
Emilia

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: Realtime serial with Wi-fi? Help!

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

I'm not sure what problem you're having with WiFi. It should be many, many times faster than serial or XBee. What have you tried doing?

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EmiliaT
 
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Re: Realtime serial with Wi-fi? Help!

Post by EmiliaT »

Hi Rick,

and thanks to your prompt reply! In this case my next question would be how - what, to your experience, would be the smoothest way for "upgrading" this same project from Bluetooth to Wifi? It would be quite fantastic if I could just replace the Xbee Series 1 modules with Xbee Wi-fi modules. Is it this simple?

(Sorry for my technical illiteracy! I'm studying industrial design and just started out with the world of electronics...)

Kindly,
Emilia

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: Realtime serial with Wi-fi? Help!

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

We don't carry the XBee WiFI modules, and I don't know anything about them. SparkFun has them.
In reading a little bit about them, it's not clear if they can talk to each other without going through a wireless router. There is a feature called SoftAP Passthrough, so maybe they can talk to each other directly.

We have our own WiFI modules that work with Arduino, the CC3000. There are both shield and breakout versions. You can get them with either a built-in antenna, or with a u.FL connector for an external antenna:
https://www.adafruit.com/search?q=cc3000

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EmiliaT
 
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Re: Realtime serial with Wi-fi? Help!

Post by EmiliaT »

Great, thanks to your reply!

I will look up your products, continue research on this topic and post my insights once the project is finished.

Best,
Emilia

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