Advantages and disadvantages of Bluetooth, WiFi, Zigbee, which is more suitable for IoT?
The short-range wireless communication protocol in the Internet of Things industry has been fighting for many years, ZigBee, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, Thread, Weave, Z-Wave, Mesh, UWB have each found their own development direction.
Although Bluetooth is no longer taken seriously, the launch of Bluetooth 5.0 soon brings new vitality. The ZigBee Alliance launches dotdot, a common IoT language for cross-network collaboration, to seize the ticket to the ecosystem in the IoT era. WiFiHaLow claims to make up for the shortcomings of previous WiFi technology when compared to Bluetooth. In the era of the IoT, Bluetooth 5.0, WiFiHaLow, and ZigBee will be the main competitors of the competition.
Bluetooth 5.0
When it comes to Bluetooth, everyone is familiar with it, because all mobile phones now support Bluetooth function. Bluetooth is an open wireless communication standard, which is a packet-based, master/slave architecture protocol that supports point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communication. Bluetooth communication allows all kinds of portable devices to communicate wirelessly with each other.
Compared with infrared and WiFi, Bluetooth's data encryption method is more mature, with the advantages of stable transmission process and strong compatibility. But today's Bluetooth 5.0 is not easy to come by, let's briefly understand the development process of Bluetooth.
Bluetooth development history
-In 1994, Bluetooth technology was born from Ericsson's low-power, low-cost wireless communication solution between mobile phones and other devices.
-In 1998, Ericsson, Nokia, Toshiba, IBM and Intel jointly initiated the standardization of short-range wireless communication technology to propose Bluetooth technology.
-In 1999, Ericsson, Nokia, Toshiba, IBM, and Intel founded the Bluetooth "Special Interest Group", the predecessor of the Bluetooth Technology Alliance, to open the door for Bluetooth technology to become a wireless communication standard. Then, Microsoft, Motorola, Samsung, Lucent and other giants joined forces with the Bluetooth special group to establish a Bluetooth technology promotion organization;
-In July 1999, the Bluetooth 1.0 standard was released, which contains the basic core protocol that provides the design standard and the quasi-basic application specification for interoperability.
-In 2001, Bluetooth 1.1 became the first official commercial version, due to the initial design, it was easy to affect the quality of communication due to interference from products of the same frequency.
It is worth mentioning that Bluetooth 1.0 is not the first version. In 1998, the first version of Bluetooth, version 0.7, was released, supporting two parts of Baseband and LMP communication protocols. In the following year, the Bluetooth version went through version 0.8, version 0.9, version 1.0Draft and version 1.0a, and officially began a wide range of publicity work, but at that time Bluetooth devices were more expensive and could not be fully popularized.
After less than 20 years of development, Bluetooth 5.0 is here. Among the many ancestors of Bluetooth 5.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0, 4.1 and 4.2, the Bluetooth version and technical characteristics are summarized in a table:
Bluetooth 5.0 communication pitch is increased by 4 times, the communication rate is increased by 2 times, and the data carrying capacity of broadcast packets is 8 times higher than that of the previous version. These technological innovations make the application scenarios of Bluetooth 5.0 more diversified and automated. Industrial control, smart homes, etc. will have his appearance.
How to deploy a wide range of networks has always been a major problem for Bluetooth, which traditionally can only connect a small number of devices in an independent network. Bluetooth 5.0 supports connectionless data transmission, and the device can distinguish the type of connection to be transmitted. Bluetooth 5.0 enables Bluetooth devices and terminals not only to point-to-point and extended modes, but also to connect Bluetooth devices with each other, and extend the distance managed by Bluetooth from this network mode.
WiFiHaLow
WiFi is a technology that accepts electronic devices to connect to a wireless local area network (WLAN), usually using the 2.4GUHF or 5GSHFISM radio frequency band.
WiFi originated in 1997 when major enterprises were looking for wireless standards for IP networks. Traditional WiFi networks work in the 2.4, 3.6 and 5GHz bands, and transmission rates in the hundreds of Mbps can even reach Gbps. The largest number of connections in a WiFi network is the wireless router, which carries more connections.
In January 2016, the WIFI Alliance released the WiFiHalow standard that operates in the 900MHZ BAND. An important feature brought by this standard is sleep mode, which can effectively increase the life of the battery. Another advantage of using lower frequency bands is that the network is highly penetrating. For many sensors, wearable devices, and devices that are not large enough to carry too many batteries, WiFiHaLow brings new hope.
WiFiHaLow faces two major challenges, the first one is that 900MHz solution requires the establishment of a different communication infrastructure than the existing WiFi network; the other one is that the actual deployment gap is too long for the proposed technology, as the WiFi Alliance plans to open certification of HaLow products only in 2018.
HaLow has many advantages over other low-power protocols, such as network security, IP connectivity, and network robustness. HaLow establishes a strong connection when the signal is weak and eliminates the need for repeaters or multiple access points (APs). In addition, Wi-Fi has been established in the consumer market for a long time, and this advantage is also difficult for other Internet of Things technology standards to achieve for the time being.
HaLow will focus on IoT technology, smart home devices, smart cars, telemedicine monitoring, smart cities, retail, industry, agriculture, etc.
ZigBee
ZigBee, also known as the Purple Bee protocol, is a short-range, low-energy wireless communication technology. It is characterized by short range, low complexity, self-organization, low power consumption, low data rate, suitable for automatic control and remote-control fields, and can be placed in various devices. ZigBee is a cheap, low-power short-range wireless networking communication technology.
The ZigBee protocol is a wireless communications standard published by the ZigBee Alliance, which was established in August 2001. In the second half of 2002, Invensys of the United Kingdom, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation of Japan, Motorola of the United States and Philips Semiconductor of the Netherlands jointly announced that they would join the ZigBee Alliance to develop a next-generation wireless communication standard called "ZigBee", which became a milestone in the development of this technology.
Although the specific content of the roadmap for promoting IoT unification released by the Zigbee Alliance is still unclear, dotdot signs, the ZigBee industry ecology has been formed, and the dotdot logo, a common language for IoT that can be cross-network collaboration has been released by the ZigBee Alliance. This application-layer protocol stack has achieved a new breakthrough in the ecological connectivity and openness of the IoT industry, which is a milestone.
WiFiHaLow vs. Bluetooth 5.0
The benefits of Bluetooth include lower power consumption, small size, cost savings, and are more suitable for short-distance data transmission between multiple devices. The advantages of Wi-Fi are high bandwidth, long distance, and more access devices, which are mainly used for large-scale and large-scale transmission of data and network coverage.
The upgrade of Bluetooth 5.0 mainly improves bandwidth and transmission range, and the upgrade of Wi-Fi HaLow mainly reduces power consumption and extends battery life. It is clear that both sides are moving towards each other's strengths. This means that the original path of each other now has a point of overlap, and the meaning of head-to-head competition is even stronger. For example, in the application of home IoT devices, the two have officially stood on the same level. In the future of home IoT devices, it is likely that devices with high data traffic requirements use Wi-Fi, while other smart home devices use Bluetooth.
IoT devices in the consumer space will be a big battleground between Bluetooth 5.0 and Wi-Fi, and it seems difficult to say which is stronger or weaker; In the enterprise-level IoT market, Bluetooth 5.0 has the advantage of taking the lead.
Whether it is Bluetooth, WiFi, or Zigbee, they all have their own advantages and specific application market. DTTEK will launch different models of Bluetooth gateways, Zigbee gateways and WiFi gateways according to the needs of each household, and multi-protocol and customization will also be supported, so that you can customize the functions according to your needs.
