ITEAD's CC2531 Dongle Brings IEEE802.15.4 Zigbee to Any USB Port for Just $3.99 A Unit
Ultra-low-cost dongle is ready to connect straight out of the box, but just watch out for a potentially weak PCB antenna.
Shenzhen-based ITEAD has launched a Zigbee-compatible USB dongle, offering a full IEEE802.15.4 implementation, aimed at the hacker on a budget: it costs just $3.99 in single quantities.
"The CC2531 USB dongle is a fully operational USB device which provides a PC interface to IEEE802.15.4/Zigbee applications," ITEAD writes. "[It] comes with a CC2531ZNP-Prod firmware, the dongle can be plugged directly into your PC/Raspberry etc. [to be] used as a Zigbee packet sniffer. Yup, it is a ready-to-go CC2531 USB dongle for zigbee2mqtt application."
The compact design features a male USB Type-A connector to the front, an unpopulated GPIO pin header to the side, a debug connector opposite, and an F-type PCB antenna to the far end. It's based, as the name implies around the Texas Instruments CC2531F256 system-on-chip, giving it a low-power 8051 microcontroller core, 8kB of RAM, and 256kB of flash storage, plus five-channel DMA, 12-bit analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) and two USARTs.
While the dongle is extremely affordable at $3.99 per unit, and comes pre-flashed with a firmware ready for out-of-the-box operation with tools including zigbee2mqtt and IoBroker, there is one potential drawback to note: Early customer feedback suggests the PCB antenna offers poor reception, with at least one buyer requesting a redesign to an SMA — or U.FL — connector for use with an external antenna.
The CC2531 USB dongle is in stock now on the ITEAD website.