At present, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee have their own application fields, mainly based on their advantages. Wi-Fi is widely used in a variety of IoT applications, including home appliances, surveillance cameras and toys, while smartphones or the Internet do not require a gateway when connected via Wi-Fi. As for Bluetooth, the situation is similar. All mobile devices support Bluetooth and can connect directly, but Bluetooth is mainly used in wearable devices and fitness equipment with lower power consumption. ZigBee is mainly used in home automation, such as lighting systems and security sensors, because in this area, cost and power consumption are key factors, while mesh networks are needed. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee have their own advantages and disadvantages, and the market they occupy is different. It is impossible to form a situation in which people who replace and “unify the world†will be formed for a long time in the future. Realizing interoperability gives users the best experience is the core goal.
With the rise of smart homes, the evolution of wireless network technology has also attracted attention in the past year. In the next few years, the three standards of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee will still be three-fold.
Since last year, the application of smart home and Internet of Things has been re-emphasized, mainly for the following three reasons:
First, the rapid growth of wireless network technology: making the number of simultaneous connections of devices requiring high bandwidth or supporting devices more than before, making the concept of Internet of Things easier.
Second, the popularity of smart phones: let the average consumer get used to using mobile phones to control everything, solve the inconvenience that previously required remote control to set or control (in the past, multiple remote controls or a super complicated universal remote control) Device).
Third, the maturity of cloud computing: so that many applications can be connected and operated through the network, the home does not need to install an expensive gateway that requires 24 hours to boot.
Both smart phones and cloud computing are things that people touch every day in their daily lives, which are easier to understand, but the changes in network technology are not so commonplace. So next, I hope that I can introduce in a simple way the evolution of wireless network technology and the impact on smart homes over the past year.
Evolution of wireless network technology
Wi-Fi 802.11ac
As early as 2011, 802.11ac released the first draft, but the official version was finalized in January 2014, but the 2014 case was immediately sensational. The main reason is Apple's strong support, from Mac Air to iPad Air2 to iPhone 6, Apple's new equipment will immediately support 802.11ac, in addition to showing Apple's determination to remain in a leading position, more importantly, fruit powder The main applications of Apple devices are mainly audio and video, and video streaming is used at home. Due to the flooding of 2.4G, the interference is very serious and the playback is very smooth.
If you are interested and use an Android phone, you can download this A p p-NETGEA RW i F i AnalyTIcs, scan the nearby wireless SSID, and you will find that there are more 2.4G wireless routers around you. Therefore, many of my authors think that the speed of Internet access in the home is slow, as long as the speed of ADSL is increased. Later, it is found that the main reason is that the router in the home only supports 2.4G, and there are too many routers in the 2.4G frequency band to cause interference at the same time, so that the Internet speed becomes Slow, after replacing the router that supports 802.11ac, and switching the iPad and iPhone in the home to the 5G band, the Internet speed will be greatly improved. If the old laptop in the home does not support 5G, just add the 802.11ac network card to the pen. Electricity can also be greatly improved. However, the improvement of 802.11ac for smart home is not only the use of 5G frequency band, but also has the following characteristics:
First, the standardization of beamforming (BeamForming) technology
Since the main control mechanism of the wireless network is FCC (NCC in Taiwan), in order to avoid the influence of electromagnetic waves on the human body, there is a certain limit on power. How to improve the wireless receiving rate and reduce the dead angle under power limitation, the beam focusing technology becomes 802.11. The technology adopted by ac, which will concentrate the wireless signal, is also consistent with today's home users, the less and less use of laptops and desks in the home, and the trend to use handheld devices.
Second, support multi-person multi-device data transmission and reception
In the past, 802.11n devices support MIMO (multi-antenna simultaneous transmission and reception). For example, the router has 4 antennas, so when you use a laptop that supports MIMO, the MIMO function transmits at the same time through 4 antennas. The data is sent to your laptop, so the user will immediately feel the increase in wireless speed, but it can only support a single user at the same time, that is, there are multiple users who want to download files or watch video and audio. The phenomenon of lag is generated, and these problems can be solved by simply switching to the 802.11ac router and supporting the 802.11ac terminal device. At home, there are dads watching movies, wives watching Korean dramas, and children playing online games (this is the author's home). Real application portrayal), there will be no unsatisfactory phenomenon.
Therefore, Wi-FI's 802.11ac solves the problem of the demand for audio-visual entertainment in smart homes, and also solves the problem of simultaneous connection of multiple devices (the old wireless router cannot connect more than 20 wireless devices). In addition, in order to support the Internet of Things, Wi-FI has begun to develop 802.11ah with a longer transmission distance. The target is to transmit distances of more than 1 km. It is hoped that data of more than 100 kbps can still be transmitted to try to challenge ZigBee and Z-Wave due to Wi-Fi. The popularity of the chip reduces the cost of the chip, and the convenience of setting. In the next few years, 802.11ah may become the biggest challenger of Zigbee.
Low power Bluetooth
Low-power Bluetooth (Bluetooth Low Energy) has joined the battleground - low-power Bluetooth has become a must-have feature on wearable devices, from the Xiaomi bracelet to the Apple Watch, has become its main communication link network, because it allows the phone to directly Linking terminal devices (Wi-Fi also needs to be connected via a router), so the connection setting step is relatively simplified. The Bluetooth organization proposes a low-power BLE standard in order to support the Internet of Things at 4.0. In 4.2, it shows their intentions. , with support for IPv6, this feature allows the Bluetooth device to go online directly.
You can imagine that the future Xiaomi bracelet or Apple watch can be directly connected to the Internet without using a mobile phone. It is obvious that the Bluetooth technology alliance is rushing into the smart home and the Internet of Things, because the cost of the Bluetooth chip is much lower than that of the Wi-Fi chip. And software development is also much simpler. For simple smart home products that do not need to transmit large amounts of data, Bluetooth 4.2 will be another network transmission medium for the Internet of Things.
ZigBee
The grandfather's Z ig B ee began to develop standards in 1998 by the ZigBee Alliance of H oneywell, which was incorporated into the IEEE 802.15.4 standard in 2001, and opened the first ZigBee open standard in 2005. ZigBee was oriented towards the Internet of Things at the beginning of its development, so it defined the internal network that can support 65,000 nodes, and also defined the physical layer (PHY), media layer (MAC), and network layer (NWK) and applications. Layer (APL), which can support star/tree/network type network topology. When a node is down, it can also route packets through other nodes. Its integrity is almost equal to the combination of TCP / IP + Ethernet.
However, it also brings relative complexity, which makes Z ig B ee stay in the industrial control field, and is not favored by household products. Because its data format is not compatible with mainstream household products such as notebooks, mobile phones, and tablets, You must connect to all ZigBee devices in your home through a Hub, and connect to your home router through a wired network or Wi-Fi wireless network. Some operators have designed ZigBee gatway to make all ZigBee devices transparent. Through this gateway, you can connect directly to the Internet.
In any case, its setup and installation complexity far exceeds Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but ZigBee's natural advantages are power saving and long transmission distance, 5mA power consumption, allowing a button battery to maintain a ZigBee sensor operation. From months to a year, home control devices such as smart sensors and smart bulbs are still irreplaceable communication standards.
to sum up:
In the next few years, these three standards will still be three-thirds. In the equipment with large data transmission, Wi-Fi is the necessary choice. In mobile low-energy devices, Bluetooth is irreplaceable, and it has low fixed energy consumption. ZigBee still has a place for transmission rate sensors.
And these three organizations will continue to develop updated standards. In the foreseeable future, it is still difficult to win, and the foreseeable future trend is that the wireless connection of smart homes will be simpler and cost-effective. It's cheaper, it will receive better and faster in multimedia transmission. It will save more power and be easier to set up in home control. Only the wireless standard that meets the needs of the above users can win.
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