IOT sensing ZigBee wireless technology helps smart home

¡¡¡¡ZigBee is an economical and low-power short-range wireless networking communication technology. It has been well known by more and more people, which is characterized by short distance, low complexity, self-organization, low power consumption, low data rate and low cost. It is very suitable for the field of home automation control and remote control, and can be easily embedded into various household electrical equipment. Fully meet the application requirements of temperature control of air conditioning system, automatic control of lighting, automatic control of curtains, gas metering control, remote control of household appliances and so on.

¡¡¡¡At present, the ZigBee protocol has basically become stable and practical. ZigBee alliance and member manufacturers also have specific market positioning for its ZigBee chips. For example, TI company has provided perfect schemes and specific specifications for its CC2430 / CC2530 series chips for home automation. The establishment of RF4CE alliance has also pushed the application of ZigBee technology in smart home to a new height. This will also bring new challenges to the traditional infrared remote controller which has been popular for decades. Therefore, various ZigBee chip manufacturers have also launched their advantageous products. TI company has launched a low-power RF solution CC2530 especially for ZigBee / IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee RF4CE. The RF development tool based on CC2530 was also first launched by wireless Dragon technology, a domestic ZigBee leading enterprise. It provides great convenience for companies that will enter the research and development field of smart home products based on ZigBee technology. Compared with TI's previous ZigBee chip, CC2530 improves the built-in flash memory from 128K to 256K today to meet the needs of more complex applications. For example, today's ZigBee smart energy needs more powerful flash memory. In terms of RF characteristics, the output power has increased from the previous highest output of 0dB to today's 4dB. The receiving sensitivity is increased from 94db to 97dB today. Therefore, the communication distance between customers and CC2530 is more stable.

¡¡¡¡In addition to ZigBee, the popular wireless network technologies in today's market mainly include Wi Fi, Bluetooth and NFC. In order to explore the market and application fields, some large companies are also actively studying and formulating some new wireless networking communication technology standards, such as UWB, Z-Wave, etc. These technologies are complementary to a large extent. Their differences are based on the special needs of transmission speed, distance and power consumption, or focus on the expansion of functions, or meet the needs of some single application scenarios, or meet the differentiation of competitive technologies.

¡¡¡¡Like Wi Fi, Bluetooth belongs to the short-range wireless communication technology used in offices and homes. They have very large wireless technology capacity, but they are not the wireless sensor network application standards with monitoring as the clear goal like ZigBee. Bluetooth technology has been highly mature and has a variety of specifications. It has been widely used in all kinds of data and voice devices in local area network, such as PC, dial-up network, notebook computer, printer, fax machine, digital camera, mobile phone and high-quality headset. Wi Fi technology uses an open frequency band near 2.4GHz, with a maximum coverage of 100m. Generally speaking, products with this logo show that they can be used to easily build a wireless LAN. At present, there are three standards for Wi Fi: IEEE802 11A / B / g, the highest data transmission rate is 54Mb / s. The data transmission rate of 802.11n standard, which is still pregnant and worthy of expectation, will reach 150 ~ 600MB / s. However, the power consumption of Wi Fi transceiver is large, so it is difficult to integrate into mesh network, and the price is also high.

¡¡¡¡UWB was originally a special military technology. In February 2002, the Federal Communications Commission officially lifted its ban. UWB has always been regarded as a substitute for Bluetooth technology. Its data transmission rate reaches 100 ~ 480MB / s, but the coverage distance is very short, no more than 10m. UWB has chip and module products, but it has no mesh networking capability.

¡¡¡¡The most comparable of the above standards are Bluetooth and ZigBee technology. ZigBee originates from Bluetooth, but it is simpler, slower, less power and cost than the latter. It is in sleep mode most of the time. It is more suitable for those occasions that do not need real-time transmission or continuous update, such as the field of industrial control and monitoring. Moreover, ZigBee is the only technical standard for wireless sensor networks at present. Its mesh network networking ability makes its application range extend to hundreds or even thousands of meters, while Bluetooth is only set up for short-range networks within 10 ~ 100m. ZigBee chips are now far cheaper than Bluetooth chips in terms of manufacturing costs.

¡¡¡¡Compared with various existing wireless communication technologies, ZigBee will be the technology with the lowest power consumption and cost, and can be used in most application fields that cannot be covered by Bluetooth, Wi Fi, UWB, GPRS and other wireless technologies. In addition, it also has the characteristics of large network capacity and can form a network of tens of thousands of devices. Manufacturers can finally use ZigBee, a standardized wireless network platform, to design simple, reliable, cheap and energy-saving smart home products and electronic products.

¡¡¡¡The concept of smart home has been mentioned for more than ten years. It belongs to an industry concept with little thunder and heavy rain. So far, it has not reached an ideal penetration rate. The main reasons are as follows: it is difficult to unify the standards, there is no industry specification, and the products of their respective manufacturers are incompatible. Solutions are expensive, solution companies lack, and lack relevant products and equipment. The infrastructure layout is difficult, the network topology is complex and diverse, and the use threshold is high. However, some technical features of ZigBee are more or less limited to home applications. For example, its low power consumption is directly reflected in its low transmission power. In this way, its transmission distance is limited and it is difficult to directly cover the whole home area. It needs to be covered by routing, which increases the complexity of the network. The frequency band of 2.4G has high frequency and short wavelength. It has poor penetration and diffraction ability for walls and obstructions, and the attenuation of obstacles is obvious. However, these shortcomings can be solved by increasing the transmission power and reception sensitivity externally, which is to solve the problem at the expense of power consumption. Although ZigBee technology has a short board, its powerful networking function is to make up for this short board. There has never been any defect in ZigBee technology, so ZigBee technology is a more appropriate choice in smart home applications.

¡¡¡¡Although some people think ZigBee technology is strange and out of reach, the demand for intelligence and automation in people's life is universal. The success of a technology can not be evaluated only by its advanced nature. It should be combined with its practicality and popularity. In this way, ZigBee is an approachable technology. We also believe that in the near future, when ZigBee's wings are inserted into smart home, it will be the arrival of the era when we experience life with technology.