Designing for ZigBee - Understand the standards before developing wireless products

In a rapidly advancing world that appears to rely more and more on technology, it is evident that wireless technology is becoming one of the most essential of them all.

Wireless devices are now found everywhere, from mobile phones to the headsets used to connect them. They are also found in automotive remote keyfobs, antitheft devices, home alarm systems, and the growing number of wireless modems in homes that provide access to the ubiquitous internet. These are only a few of the products which many have come to take for granted in the 21st century.

With wireless capabilities being incorporated into an increasing number of different types of products, there has been a concurrent growth in the different types of wireless technologies available, each of which may be better suited for different applications.

ZigBee is one of those wireless technologies that have emerged to cater

to specific needs. It is a low cost, low power, mesh networking technology that offers dramatically increased battery life and has been developed to support applications in a number of industries including:

• Home Automation (HA).
• ZigBee Smart Energy (SE).
• Telecommunication Applications (TA).
• Personal, Home, and Hospital Care (PHHC).
• Commercial Building Automation (CBA).

Essentially, ZigBee is radio device operating in the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) unlicensed bands (868 MHz, 915 MHz and 2.4 GHz) and is comprised of a radio section based upon the IEEE 802.15.4 specification, with the ZigBee part sitting on top. The mesh network functionality is a type of networking where each node in the network may act as an independent router and allows many different devices to communicate with each other by passing messages through adjacent devices, unlike traditional wireless networks that tend to operate on a one-toone tree structure.

To complement ZigBee, the RF4CE (Radio Frequency for Consumer Electronics) Consortium agreed last year to work with the ZigBee Alliance to jointly deliver a standardized specification for radio-frequency-based remote controls, further expanding the types of products for which this type of technology can be implemented.

ZigBee is the device of choice among many product designers because other wireless technologies such as Bluetooth and WiFi...Read the full article