[HH] JeeNode

[Tom Metro]

http://shop.moderndevice.com/products/jeenode-kit

  JeeNodes...couple a low-cost radio to the [Really Bare Bones Board -
  "one of the smallest and lowest-cost Arduino-compatible boards"],
  enabling wireless communication. For many people who wish to just send
  a few bytes from a sensor to a receiver, the available wireless
  options, such as XBee, are expensive overkill. So we think this little
  board fills an useful niche. Radios are available in 433 MHz & 915 MHz
  in the US...

  Jean-Claude's other big idea was organizing the microcontroller pins
  into "ports", for easy intergration with sensors and the like. Each
  JeeNode has 4 identical "ports" for attaching analog and digital I/O
  logic, I2C devices, and more. Jean-Claude has written a Ports library
  that makes it simple to interface to these ports.

Basically a small Arduino board combined with a two-way radio selling
for $22.50 in kit form. Good if you want to build cheap data collection
sensors.

(Same vendor also sells a $13 Arduino kit without the radio. The "Really
Bare Bones Board" mentioned above.)


It uses an off-the-shelf radio module ($7 FSK transceiver module):
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9582
http://jeelabs.com/products/rfm12b-board


The developer's site:
http://jeelabs.org/2011/05/01/meet-the-jeenode-v6/
http://jeelabs.com/products/jeenode


A review:
http://sharpk60.blogspot.com/2012/06/jeenode-review.html

  I've been interested in doing some home automation projects and was
  looking for a good solution for smart wireless nodes.  I looked into
  the typical XBee plus Arduino solution that lots of people used but I
  want to have many nodes and at $40-50 per node XBees were too
  expensive.  Then I found JeeNodes which can be summarized as
  inexpensive Arduinos with 2-way radios.  I purchased a set of 3
  JeeNodes plus a USB-BUB from Modern Device.  The USB-BUB is a little
  USB adapter used to program a JeeNode.
  [...]
  I really, really like JeeNodes.  The software APIs are easy to use and
  intuitive.  Soldering them was easy.  The PCBs are well thought-out.


 -Tom