Transmitter and Receiver

You need to provide more information.

How many units?
What type of sensors?
What range?
How often do the sensors need to transmit?

>>1050592
1 unit is fine for testing, but if I can have multiple ones that would be amazing.
Sensors that may include an accelerometer, humidity, temperature, etc.
Range of 100+ feet?
Continuous data from the sensors. Ideally as continuous as possible.

>>1050625
At that range, RF is probably your best bet. 2.4GHz wifi with directional antennas?

100 feet is a bit too far for bluetooth.

There's other options, but if you want a prebuilt arduino shield that you can just plug in, go for wifi.

>>1050572
Assuming you don't want actual http/wi-fi (an esp8266) then the best boards is the NRF24L01 chip ones.

The modules with external (4") antennas claim 1100 yards range, but that may be somewhat optimistic--line of sight, no objects in-between. cost = $3 on aliexpress

The modules with the PCB antennas usually don't claim any distance, but others online say that 100+ yards is typical. $1 on aliexpress

>>1050625
I'd honestly get rid of the Arduino altogether. My best bet would be ESP8266 with NodeMCU as slaves and a RaspberryPi for master

>>1050768
It's a university thing so I have to find ways to use the Arduino.

>>1050721
I have been looking at those myself. It looks like it's essentially a transceiver right?

Is there a way to use a transceiver without having two Arduinos? (one on either side)

>>1050842
>I have been looking at those myself. It looks like it's essentially a transceiver right?
The NRF24L01 chips/modules are both transmitters and receivers.

>Is there a way to use a transceiver without having two Arduinos? (one on either side)
If you want an arduino to be able to wirelessly transmit directly to something other than an arduino with the same kind of module, then you can use an esp8266 module on an arduino. This will use normal http over wi-fi.

You set it up as a hot spot that serves one simple HTML file, that contains the data that the arduino is generating.
You can then receive that data over anything else that has normal wi-fi--a PC or mobile phone.

Each separate esp8266 module has to be a separate hot spot tho, so to get data from multiple arduinos you would need to write a program that can make your PC/phone switch hotspots.

>>1050572
It's pretty easy to do serial passthrough with most wireless breakout modules.

LoRa is where most of the industrial IoT stuff has been headed if you actually want to learn a useful buzzword. Else the NRF24L01 as mentioned above.

If you wanted tons of devices on a single serial input on the Arduino, you could use a Xbee/Zigbee module in API mode. You can get a mesh network going with lots of devices and about 2km of range on a 1w 900mhz module.

>>1050907
I see. I've been looking at the NRF24L01 as well. It seems like it will come in extremely handy.

I'll admit that I am not overly experienced with Arduino yet or how to use http over wi-fi. So I would have the NRF24L01 on one end somewhere sending out data, and then the Arduino would receive that information through the esp8266?

I'm a little confused on how the NRF24L01 and the esp8266 interact. More elaboration would be amazing.

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>>1051007
Just made a little diagram. Hope this makes more sense of what I'm trying to do.

>>1051007
>I'm a little confused on how the NRF24L01 and the esp8266 interact. More elaboration would be amazing.
They don't interact.
1. The NRF24L01 uses the 2.4 GHz band, but it is NOT wi-fi, and does not use HTTP
2. The esp8266 is a wi-fi module that allows you to send data over HTTP. Wi-fi is also considered to be in the 2.4 GHz band, but "2.4GHz" does not automatically mean "wi-fi".
3. The NRF24L01 modules can only talk to each other. The esp8266 modules can talk to anything else that has wi-fi.
4. The NRF24L01 and the esp8266 cannot talk directly to each other at all.

5. The NRF24L01 is a chip that ONLY handles intelligent sending and receiving of messages. You must hook it to something else (like an arduino) to get it to do anything.

6. The esp8266 has two main chips on it: a wi-fi chip, and a programmable processor chip. Therefore, an esp8266 does not need to be connected to an arduino to do stuff. The plain version doesn't have a lot of I/O pins tho (10 or 11 I think? and 3.3v/digital only) so you have to connect other stuff to it to get very many I/O pins working.

7. If you wanted to use NRF24L01 modules, then each of your remote sensors would need an arduino with a connected NRF24L01 module, and you would need an arduino with an NRF24L02 module connected to a PC to receive the sensor boards' signals.

8. If you wanted to use esp8266 boards, then you wouldn't need to use any arduinos at all. The esp8266 modules can all be programmed to operate the remote sensors themselves, and you can receive the data over wi-fi/http, straight to a phone or laptop.

>>1051305
Thank you for this amazing and elaborate explanation.

It sounds like the esp8266 then would ideally give me more options. I'm trying to make many small units that can send out information independently of one another and have that information caught on a laptop. You mentioned that they can receive data over wi-fi/http. Using wi-fi, you obviously need a wi-fi signal in range. How would http work? I'm not familiar with this method.

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I'm working on it

>>1050572
I was planning on making a similar project not long ago, by using DTMF signals over FM one may be able to send pulsed signals through arduino, maybe attach the audio input to an arduino digital out pin and use it as a method to transmit (Tx) data over FM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMgzUGBfXiE
Any simple FM receiver will be able to be listen to your Tx and connected to an arduino pin should be able to pick up what's being transmitted.

>>1051500
>How would http work? I'm not familiar with this method.
No offense, but there is whole separate websites with wikis about using both of these two modules. Put "esp8266 wiki" into Google and start reading.

>>1051015

> controlling sound with a humidity sensor


What do you mean?

>>1051706
I think what he means is modulating the pitch/timbre of a synth or something with data from the sensors

>>1051960
That's exactly what I mean. Pure Data is perfect for this.

>>1050628
>BT is not RF

OP I had a project for work where we needed to have P2P comm between an arduino and an android phone, through the lenght of a (obviously metal) 280m train. We just used LoRa shields, can go to several kilometers and consume almost nothing. The library is easy to use too.

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>>1051510
Underrated post.

>>1052245
Did something similar last semester, but I used python instead of pure data and a bluesmirf gold instead of a wifi dongle since <= 100 feet was good enough for me. Will continue monitoring the thread if you need something. Good luck with your project!