I got hold of a Texas Instrument evaluation kit of the CC1110 chip. It’s a wireless chip that’s programmable and flexible both in terms of frequencies, codecs, packet handling etc. I’ve played with it quite a bit, and you can really have so much fun with it. I’m impressed by the capabilties and flexibility! TI also offers a free communication stack that they call SimpliciTI, which handles quite advanced scenarios and networks.

The CC1110 comes with a microcontroller, but there are simpler versions of the chip without the MCU also. Seedstudio has an Arduino version Atmega board with the CC1101 chip on it. Looks like quite a nice product at a reasonable price, given that it’s an arduino board with wireless capability. It’s really small. The call it RFBee. I haven’t tried it though. If you have any experience with it, let me know.

There’s an introduction video of the CC1110 mini development kit on the product page that I really recommend. The CC1110 is designed by TI in Norway. There are so many application areas for this type of solution. I’d like to put it onto one of my robots, but there are many other ideas also.