I would like to connect a UART sensor directly to an XBee Wi-Fi module using its Rx-Tx, without using another MCU as an intermediate. The XBee would read the data from the sensor and send them via Wi-Fi to the internet (through a router).
Usual Application : Sensor -> MCU -> XBee -> Wi-Fi
My concept: Sensor-> Xbee -> Wi-Fi
From what I have read it is possible to sample analog sensors directly from XBee's analog inputs and send the data via Wi-Fi. It is also possible to sample the states of some GPIO pins of the XBee directly and send them. However, although the XBee has a UART, I have not found an application which uses this UART directly to communicate with a sensor. This UART is only used to communicate with an intermediate microcontroller which reads sensors, and sends commands to the XBee module via this UART. Another problem is that I should be able to transmit a UART command from the XBee module to the sensor (the sensor needs a command to send back a response). My purpose is to send periodically the read command to the sensor, get the response and transmit the response via Wi-Fi.
From my understanding it is not possible to use the UART of an XBee module like that, I would need an intermediate MCU. But I would like to ask, if I am missing something and this is possible. Has someone managed to do it or read something relevant? Is there a way to take advantage of the XBee's UART and program it to do this task?
Xbee: Digi XBee® Wi-Fi - OEM Module with Fully Integrated Support for Digi Remote Manager
