Hello.

I am working on a project in which a microcontroller has to connect to the Internet wirelessly. I am wondering if there is any microcontroller with Zigbee capability that can be used to connect to the Internet. Also, it would be really great if someone could tell me the advantages of Zigbee for Internet access over Wi-Fi (if there is any).

Thank you in advance.

 

Don't think you can do that. Zigbee is low data rate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigBee.

 

I support Texas Instruments’ portfolio of Low Power RF IEEE compliant 802.15.4 devices. These devices are defined by the IEEE to support operation in the 2.4GHz frequency band using Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum. The supported data rate is 250kbps at the PHY layer. Standard protocols like ZigBee, 6LoWPAN, and RF4CE are built on top of this IEEE defined 802.15.4 PHY and MAC layer, and define the networking protocol that allows devices to setup a network, join, bind or establish peer to peer links, and send and receive data. On its own 802.15.4 is a different PHY layer than what is used with the wireless 802.11 standards, so they cannot communicate directly on the same network. Instead what can be done is to have a gateway that operates as a bridge of communication between this 802.15.4 network and the internet. There are many companies out there such as Alektrona (www.alektrona.com) that provide such a gateway, but please note that this is not a single microcontroller or chip that operates on both networks. I hope this helps and if you need more info or are looking for other LPRF devices please visit us at www.ti.com/zigbee. http://www.ti.com/zigbee