What is ZigBee and why is it
important for your smart home?
ZIGBEE
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There's been an explosion
in smart home devices
over the past few years.
What was once referred to
as "home automation" and
still referred to as "Internet
of Things" has now settled
into a more friendly
category we call smart
home. We've got heating,
lighting, cameras, sensors
for just about everything,
as well as new devices
popping up every week to
drag your home into a
connected future.
Over the past few years,
we've moved from a
position of disconnected
systems into a world with
emerging hubs, with big
devices like the Amazon
Echo and Google Home
acting as hubs to tie all
your connected services
together, along with
emerging platforms like
Apple HomeKit and
Samsung SmartThings.
So what role does ZigBee
have to play in this brave
new world of the smart
home? Pocket-lint is here
to supply all the answers.
The smart
home
The whole idea behind the
smart home it to have
everything talking to
everything, so you stay
informed while you're
devices stay informed too.
That might be that your
lighting talks to your
security camera or that
your smart coffee machine
turns on when you get out
of bed. The Internet of
Things might be a fairly
useless term, but
essentially, that's what's
happening - everything is
connected, meaning that
information can be shared
and your life can be
controlled without the need
to visit each thing
individually.
All of these connected
devices are being handled
by automatic systems over
a single network. The
result? You have a smart
home, thanks to smart
applications and devices.
But there's just one
problem: many companies
make different devices. In
order to get them to work
together on a single
network, you have to use a
single common language.
That's where ZigBee
comes in.
What is
ZigBee?
ZigBee is based on the
IEEE's 802.15.4 personal-
area network standard. All
you need to know is that
ZigBee is a specification
that's been around for
more than a decade, and
it's widely considered an
alternative to Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth for some
applications including low-
powered devices that don't
require a lot of bandwidth -
like your smart home
sensors.
ZigBee is for sensor-
monitoring and control of
various
applications/devices from
multiple companies,
because it lets ZigBee-
enabled devices work and
operate together while also
giving you the ability to
control them. Hence why it
is ideal for smart homes.
A typical example is when
you own a smart light bulb
(that is ZigBee-enabled)
and a smart light switch
(that is also ZigBee-
enabled), and you want
the light switch to
communicate with and
control the light bulb. With
ZigBee, the two devices -
even if they're from
different manufacturers -
speak a common
language.
ZigBee does not focus on
the point-to-point market,
such as Bluetooth, where
one high-powered device
sends data to another
high-powered device over
a short range. It's also not
for standard wireless uses
like when you would
stream audio or movies.
You should only use
ZigBee if you need to send
data across a large area,
where it traverses multiple
hops, and all the devices
you want to control are
low-powered or even
battery-powered. For this
reason, ZigBee is most
used in industrial and
smart home systems (such
as a wireless light switch
for a lighting setup).
Keep in mind that while
ZigBee's network layer
supports both star and tree
typical networks, it's often
associated with a mesh
network.
In reality, for a customer
putting together a smart
home, a device that
supports the ZigBee
protocol may still be siloed,
but as we move forward,
with more devices wanting
to act as the central
controller, having fewer
wireless protocols for your
smart devices might be a
distinct advantage -
especially if it means you
can avoid having a huge
collection of hubs
connected to your router