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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-01T07:22:06+00:00

I’m working on some software to manage a device that communicates with a remote

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I’m working on some software to manage a device that communicates with a remote control via ZigBee. We would like the device to be able to communicate with a web server and/or smartphone via Wi-Fi, so that our software can interact with it. The ZigBee remote is clunky and we are trying to replace and automate some of the functionality.

I’m wondering if something like this: Sparkfun WiFly Module
or this: Digi Xbee WiFi
might be able to help me achieve this.

Forgive me if this is a silly question; I’m pretty unfamiliar with ZigBee and its related hardware. Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: To clarify, what I want to do is swap the current remote for an iPad. The board has an XBee Pro module and there is another one located in the current remote.

I’m thinking it would be best to swap the XBee Pro with one of the Wi-Fi modules mentioned above, and reprogram the board to communicate with an iPad via an ad-hoc network.

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  1. Editorial Team

    If you have a hardware design that has an XBee 20-pin socket on it you absolutely can change it out for an XBee WiFi module and then communicate with your device via an iPad or a web-server.

    Here is a link to the XBee WiFi.

    If, on the other hand, you want to be able to communicate with your XBee ZB/ZigBee device from a smart phone or from an external web application you can use the following solutions pattern:

    [ Web Site/Smart Phone ] – – – (Device Cloud) – – – [XBee Gateway] – – – [ XBee or ZigBee Device ]

    The XBee Gateway can be a device like an Digi ConnectPort X gateway or something of your own design that can speak TCP/IP and ZigBee simultaneously. The gateway then creates a TCP/IP connection out to a “Device Cloud”.

    A Device Cloud is a site such as ThingSpeak or the iDigi Device Cloud which are free services that allow two-way communications with remote devices (even through firewalls). Your website or smartphone then speaks to the Device Cloud using simple web-services which in turn speaks to the XBee Gateway and all of your XBee or ZigBee devices.

    Using this pattern you can speak to your XBee or ZigBee devices no matter where they are in the world.

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