Hardware is relatively difficult to deploy w.r.t software and with wireless communications it is an extreme. You will need extensive wireless design exploration even with the manufacturers providing reference designs and good support. You need experienced engineers, who can understand the details, carry-out application layout, antenna design, debug the issues during the development phase / field testing / production. You will also need expensive wireless tools like test and measurement instruments with relevant software packages. Wireless modules are obviously bigger than the chip itself but one need to carefully consider this parameter. Only if size is the biggest constraint then do a chip based design else in-general, in most of the cases module would be a good option. Some of the widely used wireless techniques are the Bluetooth, BLE and wireless sensors. They can be programmed to import / export data accordingly.

The VisualSim Architect has a complete module dedicated for wireless communication, like the signal processing block. If you need flexibility in your design then VisualSim offers different blocks related to wireless simulators. With the image processing and sensor systems, there is a wireless simulator specially designed for wireless applications in VisualSim Architect.