What is ZigBee?
Zigbee is a wireless technology developed as an open connectivity standard in the global marketplace to meet the unique needs of low-cost, low-power IoT wireless data networks. The Zigbee connectivity standard operates on the IEEE 802.15.4 physical board radio specification and operates in unlicensed radio bands including 2.4 GHz, 900 MHz, and 868 MHz.
The 802.15.4 wireless specification, on which the Zigbee stack operates, was ratified by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2003. This specification is a packet radio card protocol intended for devices and products with low battery operated cost. The protocol allows devices to communicate data in a variety of network topologies and can have years of battery life.
The Zigbee 3.0 protocol
The Zigbee protocol was created and ratified by the member companies of the Zigbee Board Alliance, which includes more than 300 market-leading semiconductor manufacturers, technology companies, equipment manufacturers and service companies. The Zigbee protocol was designed to provide an easy-to-use wireless data solution characterized by secure and reliable wireless network architectures.
The advantage of Zigbee
The Zigbee 3.0 protocol is designed to communicate data across noisy RF environments common in commercial and industrial applications. Version 3.0 builds on the existing Zigbee connectivity standard but unifies market-specific application profiles to allow all devices to be connected wirelessly in the same network, regardless of market designation and function. Additionally, a Zigbee 3.0 certification system ensures the interoperability of products from different device manufacturers. Connecting Zigbee 3.0 networks to the IP domain paves the way for wireless monitoring and control from radio devices such as smartphones and tablets over a local or wide area network, including the Internet, and enables the real Internet of Things.
The characteristics of the Zigbee protocol are as follows:
Support for multiple network topologies such as point-to-point networks,
point-to-multipoint and mesh networks
Low duty cycle - ensures long battery life
Low latency
Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)
Up to 65,000 nodes per network
128-bit AES encryption for secure data connections
Collision avoidance, retries and acknowledgements.
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