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What is ZigBee
The mission of the ZigBee Working Group is to bring about the existence of
a broad range of interoperable consumer devices by establishing open
industry specifications for unlicensed, untethered peripheral, control and
entertainment devices requiring the lowest cost and lowest power
consumption communications between compliant devices anywhere in and
around the home.
The ZigBee Alliance will also serve as the official test and certification
group for ZigBee devices. ZigBee is the only standards-based technology
that addresses the needs of most remote monitoring and control and sensory
network applications.
Formed in 1963 by the merger of the Institute of Radio Engineers and the
American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the IEEE combined the specific
interests of both organizations into one interrelated focus. Including such
vital areas as wire communications, power supply systems, and radio
engineering, the formation of the IEEE resolved the issue of competing
organizations whose areas of expertise were becoming increasingly
intertwined in a modern world. The end result was the establishment of a
central conduit of information flow that would allow the association to
effectively make use of innovations in a number of electrical related fields.
This central information flow provided members with the chance to learn
from one another in ways that was not possible prior to that time.
ZigBee is the set of specs built around the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless protocol.
The IEEE is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a non-
profit organization dedicated to furthering technology involving electronics
and electronic devices. The 802 group is the section of the IEEE involved in
network operations and technologies, including mid-sized networks and
local networks. Group 15 deals specifically with wireless networking
technologies, and includes the now ubiquitous 802.15.1 working group,
which is also known as Bluetooth®. The standard itself is regulated by a
group known as the ZigBee Alliance, with over 150 members worldwide.
ZigBee has been developed to meet the growing demand for capable
wireless networking between numerous low-power devices. In industry
ZigBee is being used for next generation automated manufacturing, with
small transmitters in every device on the floor, allowing for communication
between devices to a central computer. This new level of communication
permits finely-tuned remote monitoring and manipulation. In the consumer
market ZigBee is being explored for everything from linking low-power
household devices such as smoke alarms to a central housing control unit, to
centralized light controls.
The specified maximum range of operation for ZigBee devices is 250 feet
(76m), substantially further than that used by Bluetooth® capable devices,
although security concerns raised over "sniping" Bluetooth® devices
remotely, may prove to hold true for ZigBee devices as well.
Due to its low power output, ZigBee devices can sustain themselves on a
small battery for many months, or even years, making them ideal for install-
and-forget purposes, such as most small household systems. Predictions of
ZigBee installation for the future, most based on the explosive use of ZigBee
in automated household tasks in China, look to a near future when upwards
of 60 ZigBee devices may be found in an average American home, all
communicating with one another freely and regulating common tasks
seamlessly.
Concept behind development of Zigbee
Why do we require zigbee when we already have Bluetooth
Why the ZigBee Standard?
ZigBee was created to address the market need for a cost-effective,
standards-based wireless networking solution that supports low data-rates,
low-power consumption, security, and reliability. ZigBee is the only
standards-based technology that addresses the unique needs of most remote
monitoring and control and sensory network applications.
The initial markets for the ZigBee Alliance include Consumer Electronics,
Energy Management and Efficiency, Health Care, Home Automation,
Building Automation and Industrial Automation.
A MAC command frame provides the mechanism for remote control and
configuration of client nodes. A centralized network manager uses MAC to
configure individual clients' command frames no matter how large the
network.
Finally, the beacon frame wakes up client devices, which listen for their
address and go back to sleep if they don't receive it. Beacons are important
for mesh and cluster-tree networks to keep all the nodes synchronized
without requiring those nodes to consume precious battery energy by
listening for long periods of time.
Device addresses employ 64-bit IEEE and optional 16-bit short addressing.
The address field within the MAC can contain both source and destination
address information (needed for peer-to-peer operation). This dual address
information is used in mesh networks to prevent a single point of failure
within the network.