The XBee radio is a small, low-power chip that allows point-to-point and network communications between nodes using the ZigBee protocol.

Most importantly for my purposes, the XBee includes six 10-bit A/D converters. Ten-bit isn’t particularly high resolution, but it is sufficient for many introductory lab experiments that would otherwise be impossible with wired sensors.

Estella Lai and I have built a small data-collection module that uses the XBee. These pages tell how.