These absolutely rock! XBee stuff really works well. I used the NewMicros stuff and in one experiment observed over 1/2 mile range at 115k serial. That’s about 1 kilometer, but line of sight. ANd heard of longer tests. Used the XBee dongle on the PC, and XBee adapter-232 that can be seen clicking the Zigbee link. Looks like they have some carriers that are pretty cheap. Oh, used the XBee Pro modules, with the wire antenna. The UFL connector is good if you want to have an antenna outside an enclosure for the robot. Don’t think the chip antenna is that great.
Bux Yeah, the dongle is a little. The carriers down below are pretty cheap though $6 and $9. At the time of the tests, they were the only ones making these interfaces.