Is Zigbee the Next Bluetooth? 66
bz asks: "I work for a small product development company that is considering the use of RF. Naturally, it seems that it would be easier to use a proprietary protocol rather than some of the standards on the market. We are restricted by small code space and low power. The Zigbee protocol needs more memory than we would like to give up. Naturally, if Zigbee is going to become ubiquitous, we would like to sacrifice the extra memory and jump on the bandwagon. However, if it is only going to be as popular as Bluetooth, we would prefer to pass. Is Zigbee going to succeed, or is it likely to follow along the low road that Bluetooth has already paved?"
Why does it matter? (Score:4, Interesting)
And you speak as if Bluetooth didn't succeed at all.
Is this a joke article?
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's my experience, anyway.
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:1)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:1)
I own at least 10 bluetooth devices, from mice and keyboards to phones and printers and so on. I also occasionally on the train trip home do exactly as you say, and regularly find a dozen devices within the 10m range.
Bluetooth is in fact widespread (Score:2)
The "lean-in and look around" reactions I get are SO worth it.
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
"Wireless" and "headset" are two words that do not go together without inviting "cancer" along for the fun.
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
I'm also planning to see if I can connect earpiece to laptop for skype calling while wandering about.
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
The only problem with BT is the range, when I walk out of the room the connection breaks.
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
Let me see...
Bluetooth Smartphone, Bluetooth Headset, Bluetooth Palm T5, Bluetooth in my Mac, Bluetooth in my laptop. All used every day for phone calls, synchronisation and internet access on the move.
I think bluetooth has definately succeeded here.
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
And I can't think of many people I know that don't own a bluetooth device. I have a laptop, a mobile phone, a PDA, and a hands free headset, all with bluetooth. In particular, it's virtually impossible to buy a mobile phone without bluetooth these days. Yeah, I'd say bluetooth is definitely a success.
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:1)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2)
All of their PDA and Blackberry devices are Bluetooth capable. You can get a Bluetooth capable device (either the Sony Ericsson Z520a, or a refurbished Blackberry), for only $70 online. The Z520a is definitely not a very high end expensive model; it's considered by some as low-end. Retail resellers often offer Bluetooth-capable phones for less, or even free; I thin
Naturally? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't it be easier to use a field-tested protocol, like Bluetooth, which already has oodles of cell phones and gadgets to attach to my PC?
Re:Naturally? (Score:2)
Re:Naturally? (Score:1)
and not all zigbee stacks are monolithic. it is possible to use just what you need. if your vendor says it can't be done, look for another.
Re:Naturally? (Score:2)
nope (Score:2)
Only as sucessful as Bluetooth??? (Score:5, Informative)
Zigbee does look like it will be easier to interface than Bluetooth though.
Re:Only as sucessful as Bluetooth??? (Score:2)
If you see bluetooth as an alternative to WLAN then bluetooth has utterly failed because it is just a wholly different thing, with completely different application areas. Zigbee is for a third, completely separate application area.
The only thing those 3 technologies overlap in are the frequencies used.
Re:Only as sucessful as Bluetooth??? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Only as sucessful as Bluetooth??? (Score:2)
While manufacturers are shipping many BT devices, how many people are actually using the functionality?
Followup question... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Followup question... (Score:2)
Re:Followup question... (Score:1)
Which is lower power? (Score:1)
Zigbee... (Score:5, Insightful)
Zigbee will be good for connected sensor networks. I suppose eventually someone will start selling personal area networks using zigbee, but those haven't caught on yet, and I doubt zigbee is going to make any significant inroads.
The only advantage to using a standard is interoperability and cheap existing hardware/software. Since zigbee has few standards about what the devices can do and how they are to interact with each other on the application layer, then there is little or no interoperability. Sure, the lightswitch and thermostat have zigbee, but the thermostat has to understand what a lightswitch is and what it does before it can intelligently set the temperature based on the occupancy of the room (presumably based on whether the lights were just turned on).
Since there are no standards for anything but the lowest layers in zigbee, then it is only marginally better than using a proprietary standard. At best when other products come out you can flash yours to understand how to interact, but that's another step down a path that is likely to lead nowhere.
The only advantage to Zigbee is that it can be cheaper in some cases to implement - where you need a rather significant and robust network, but don't want to spend the time and money developing all the prototcols to manage such a beast. If you're doing very simple point to point communications, then zigbee isn't going to save you anything. Or, in other words, if zigbee is more expensive (chipset, code, memory, etc) to implement than another solution, pick the other solution. In some cases it'll be cheaper - when the other solution will take a year to develop and test, and you have more expensive radio components than the zigbee chipsets due to complexity.
-Adam
Re:Zigbee... (Score:1)
Embedded memory's just not that expensive anymore... Freescale's 64k flash MCU with built-in Zigbee (MC13213 (there's 13211/2/4 as well) is sampling now and should cost you less than USD5 each. the 32k or 16k versions (with reduced stack functionality) are a little cheaper.
If you want a robust, highly-capable stack, it's a lot cheaper/quicker than writing your own. If the only reason for selecti
Re:Zigbee... (Score:2)
My biggest qualm is that Zigbee itself is a highly proprietary standard. I'm fine with having computers orchestrate all levels of interaction, being middlemen in the sensor networks to get sensors to talk to each other, but as it stands we've got to sit around with our thumbs up our asses while people release readymade Zigbee solutions... because we cant built hte @
802.15.4 good, ZigBee bad (Score:5, Informative)
(On this note, don't buy the MaxStream 802.15.4 chips, because they're non-conformant - got an official line on that from one of their engineers. They're building a 802.15.4-like proprietary protocol.)
Re:802.15.4 good, ZigBee bad (Score:2)
http://www.caba.org/standard/zigbee.html [caba.org]
http://www.networkworld.com/details/6549.html [networkworld.com]
If a sensor were to run TinyOS and communicate with ZigBee, and also claim to be 802.15.4 compliant, would that allow us to work with only the 802.15.4 layer? The MicaZ series that Crossbow (xbow.com) sells would be one example of something my research group would be looking at.
Re:802.15.4 good, ZigBee bad (Score:2)
Right now, TinyOS has limited 802.15.4 support (certainly for the CC2420 radio that the MicaZ uses), but no-one AFAIK has implemented ZigBee support yet. I'm thinking that a more sensible option is to use 802.15.4 to actually do packet level transmission, but then use another routing layer (shameless plug [tevp.net]) to do node-to-node transmission. How to do this is to have 802.15.4 nodes from RandomCompany doing the act
But will they use it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Radio Shack has (used to?) sold the "X11" modules since the early/mid 80s... They could control lights, fans, thermostat, etc... I think they even had them intergrated into light switches, etc... And they had a module that could be programmed with a computer to automate everything... Even had something so that you could control the house from a telephone...
Sadly, this seems to have gone the way of the Dodo bird and the Clapper...
Eve
No way (Score:1)
Re:No way (Score:3, Informative)
It's not intended to be a Bluetooth killer. They are both great for their designed purposes. Bluetooth for rechargable peripherals and Zigbee for making a load of probes to scatter around a plant to measure temperatu
Re:No way (Score:1)
Re:No way (Score:2, Interesting)
we're not in need of realtime data, a few minutes between samplings will do, but we do have a rather high tag number (thousands) requirement.
Is Zigbee the Next Bluetooth? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re: Is Zigbee the Next Bluetooth? (Score:1)
Need more information (Score:3)
Re:Need more information (Score:1)
One major quesiton that should be considered when figuring this out (along with the parent's questions): are Zigbee's data rates sufficient for your use? Do you need a self-organizing mesh network, or are you just going to have a device talk to a computer?
This question sounds like its coming from someone from business development, not engineering.
Extra Memory for Zigbee? (Score:3, Informative)
32k! (Score:2)
It's bad enough you need to use 512 byte blocks to write to MMC cards.
Cheap, robust, available wireless would be a real boon.. we have robust and available, but definately not cheap.
Open (Score:2)
The stacks are much smaller. 30k v. 200k. If they actually gave a license open source could use though, I'd be willing to be
Depends on the Application (Score:2, Informative)
Apples and Oranges - Re:Depends on the Application (Score:2)
There is nothing wrong with comparing apples to oranges.
Please see: Apples and Oranges -- A Comparison [improbable.com] [www.improbably.com - Annals of Improbable Research]
Z-wave - an alternative? (Score:1)
Zigbee vs Bluetooth (Score:2)
ZigBee (Score:1)
The nice thing about ZigBee is it connects pretty much instataeous, unlike 802.11b and BlueTooth. Basically you 'switch on' your device and it's connected - instantly.
I have a bluetooth gps reciever. I would love it to have ZigBee, i find the whole waiting for the bluetooth to connect (even if only a few secon
Who said bluetooth is dead? (Score:2)
Its adoption is making slow progress, which is normally how technologies that are in it for the long haul happen.
Re: (Score:1)