ITEAD CC2531 – A new USB Dongle compatible with Zigbee

ITEAD specializes in developing and manufacturing hardware and smart home products. Recently ITEAD launched its new USB Dongle CC2531 Compatible with Zigbee. Wait, it’s not only that. The new USB Dongle offers a complete IEEE802.15.4 integration, focused on the hacker at a very less cost: it costs only $3.99 for a single unit.

"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 structure features a male USB Type-A connector to the front, an unpopulated GPIO pin header to the side, a debug connector inverse, and a F-type PCB antenna to the far end. It's based, as the name suggests around the Texas Instruments CC2531F256 system-on-chip, giving it a low-power 8051 microcontroller core, 8kB of RAM, and 256kB of flash storage, in addition to five-channel DMA, 12-piece analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) and two USARTs.

While the dongle is incredibly 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 proposes the PCB antenna offers poor reception, with at least one purchaser mentioning an restructuring to a SMA — or U.FL — connector for use with an external antenna.

Features:

• Flashed with CC2531ZNP-Prod firmware for zigbee2mqtt application
• Lead out 8 IO connectors
• Debug interface
• Size: 5.6*1.6*0.7cm
• Two buttons and two LEDs for user interaction

Source: www.itead.cc