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Author Topic: Raw 802.15.4 frames?  (Read 8583 times)

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Offline wj

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Raw 802.15.4 frames?
« on: August 07, 2013, 01:16:23 am »
As I have quite a few custom homebrew 802.15.4 devices (they're not ZigBee as they run a completely custom simple protocol) I'm wondering if there are any provisions made to be able to send and receive raw 802.15.4 frames with the Almond+ without the ZigBee stack messing with it? What I have are LED dimmer controllers, remotes, garage door openers and a generic RS-485 interface, all are built around the Atmel ATMEGA128RFA1 MCU. As the codespace is limited and the devices does a lot more than just wireless communication there's little extra CPU time and memory available to do proper ZigBee (not mentioning any potential additional licensing), and I don't need the mesh networking part either.

I read somewhere that the 802.15.4 controller in the Almond+ could only do one profile at a time, could this mean that there's a way to have a "raw" profile of sorts loaded?

/wj

Offline André

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Re: Raw 802.15.4 frames?
« Reply #1 on: August 07, 2013, 07:40:51 am »
if everything else fails, get e telos b (or similar) sensor node which comes with an USB interface.
I used those a lot on openWRT, and you´ll basicly end up with a java command line tool that allows you to send packets via the telos b´s radio, which you can alter in any way.

LGNilsson

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Re: Raw 802.15.4 frames?
« Reply #2 on: August 07, 2013, 10:27:21 am »
As I have quite a few custom homebrew 802.15.4 devices (they're not ZigBee as they run a completely custom simple protocol) I'm wondering if there are any provisions made to be able to send and receive raw 802.15.4 frames with the Almond+ without the ZigBee stack messing with it? What I have are LED dimmer controllers, remotes, garage door openers and a generic RS-485 interface, all are built around the Atmel ATMEGA128RFA1 MCU. As the codespace is limited and the devices does a lot more than just wireless communication there's little extra CPU time and memory available to do proper ZigBee (not mentioning any potential additional licensing), and I don't need the mesh networking part either.

I read somewhere that the 802.15.4 controller in the Almond+ could only do one profile at a time, could this mean that there's a way to have a "raw" profile of sorts loaded?

/wj

I'm not going to answer your question in full here, as I simply don't know off hand if it'd be possible, but you're right in as far as most ZigBee controllers being limited to one profile at a time. I'll have to ask the guys and see if they have a better answer for you.

Offline wj

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Re: Raw 802.15.4 frames?
« Reply #3 on: August 07, 2013, 12:45:53 pm »
Thanks for the input! If everything else fails I have built a couple of USB-to-802.15.4 dongles that exposes a simple HID-interface. Those are the current interface to my 802.15.4 setup until I get to play with the Almond+. Having everything in one box would definitely open up a lot of possibilities for others to use the devices.

From the searching I did it seems that the early prototypes of the Almond+ used one of the Atmel 802.15.4 tranceivers (possibly even the 128RFA1 MCU/RF combo?), but a move to Silicon Labs were suggested. Any more information about what chip that was finally selected?

/wj

LGNilsson

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Re: Raw 802.15.4 frames?
« Reply #4 on: August 07, 2013, 10:05:46 pm »
The final version of the Almond+ will indeed use Silicon Labs.
Sadly it looks like it's most likely not going to be possible to send raw 802.15.4 frames using the Almond+ due to chipset limitations. You're of course free to thinker with it, but there are no guarantees it'll work.

Offline wj

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Re: Raw 802.15.4 frames?
« Reply #5 on: August 08, 2013, 02:50:14 am »
The final version of the Almond+ will indeed use Silicon Labs.
Sadly it looks like it's most likely not going to be possible to send raw 802.15.4 frames using the Almond+ due to chipset limitations. You're of course free to thinker with it, but there are no guarantees it'll work.

It sounds like the EM351 chip from SiLabs? I don't have any experience with those chips but is not afraid to dive into it! :) Thanks for checking!

/wj

 

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