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

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