Which is the Best Choice for a Wireless Fencing Unit: Bluetooth or USB?

[duffusd]

Hey everyone. I'm new on physics forums, and I have a project that I would appreciate some help...

This project is to make a wireless fencing unit (olympic fencing, not like farming...) that can connect via usb or bluetooth into a smartphone to simplify the tools for local referees. So, I have two choices:

first - each fencer has their own microcontroller or something that can transmit bluetooth, this will connect via bluetooth to the smartphone.
second - each fencer has their own microcontroller that can transmit wirelessly to a main microcontroller that has a usb interface compatible with android.

for those that don't know about electric fencing - simply put there are three wires, all this has to do is be able to read from two of them. one of the wires is the supplied power.

I am looking for the best bang for my buck. With minimal processing requirements, I don't need an expensive FPGA with a lot of memory for the microcontroller attached to the fencer.

Thank you for your time everyone!

 

[pantaz]

Take a look at ZigBee wireless modules. SparkFun has a good selection, along with links to relevant information and tutorials.

 

[duffusd]

Thank you, I've been looking at sparkfun, and the closest thing I can find is this http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10393 bluetooth mate silver, but I can't tell if this will be able to send the signals that I need.

 

[schip666!]

Poke around on: http://hackaday.com/

They frequently have articles about folks interfacing phones and uC using bluetooth.

 

[pantaz]

...
first - each fencer has their own microcontroller or something that can transmit bluetooth, this will connect via bluetooth to the smartphone.
second - each fencer has their own microcontroller that can transmit wirelessly to a main microcontroller that has a usb interface compatible with android. ...

If you're firm on using an Android as the referee's handheld, then you're locked into building a compatible "app" -- do you know if the Android platform even supports this type of data transfer?