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ZigBee Low-Power Wireless Networking
asmithmd1 writes "Do you you have a great idea for a wireless device that really doesn't need the 1 Mbit/sec (and high power consumption) of Bluetooth? Well you will have a new choice soon, ZigBee. Zigbee is the trademark for IEEE 802.15 Personal Area network low data rate standard. Designed to run in low power 8 bit devices at data rates of 20k bits/second, a ZigBee node will run for months if not years on one set of batteries. With heavy hitters like Motorola and Phillips behind it and chips available soon for half the cost of bluetooth, it looks like it will become a reality."
No. Next question?
For connecting my fridge to the internet. Also, my lightbulbs. Those need IP addresses, too.
Yet more interference. As it is any time anyone uses a wireless phone (2.4GHz), bluetooth device (2.4GHz), radio headphones (2.4GHz) or microwave (everything) my 802.11b (2.4GHz) connection dies...
yes, the 2.4 ghz is getting oversaturated, but the FCC needs to open up more spectrum, as for uses, it will have some, (and yes better than toasters wasteing IP's, just NAT/IPv6 that stuff). WIll it be overhyped like bluetooth? yes. Will it be completely unessesary in some cases (IE, wi-fi in a palm) Yes. lets just hope that this protical does checking to see if a channel is in use (like wi-fi) and not act like bluethooth's channel hopping spred spectrum stuff
come comment on the madness at http://slashdot.org/~phreak03/journal/
I'm wondering how the cost and battery life would compare to infrared. It seems relatively cheap (to me at least, since just about every wireless remote I have is IR-based) to have a LED that emits IR light, but it would also be cool to have wireless remotes based on this technology. Sunlight coming in through the window can disrupt IR communications, and line of sight can get to be a pain depending on how the components are positioned. It also seems response time might be better, but I'm nss. I'm still running an IR remote on the batteries that came with it (4 AAAs) at 4 years and going, so battery life is a definite concern.
If I'm not mistaken, the WoZ general specifics said it would transmit at 20kbits/sec...now I'm wondering if this is the tech. Anyone know?
blog |
This could be helpful both against pickpockets and easily distracted slashdotters. :-)
Actually that's not entirely true. The 802.15.4 standard defines the physical radio behavior of the personal area network; ZigBee is the logical network and application software that runs on top of 802.15.
Ref: ZigBee FAQ
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
What people really need is more than 1 Mbps, not less.
First bluetooth, now zigbee (wifi should be in here somewhere too I suppose), what do they do, get pissed in the office on a friday arvo and pull stupid arse names out of a hat?
I can just see a group of marketroids sitting round in a room saying things like, "oh numbers, they'll never catch on" "quite so, we need something snazzier" "wait a minute, a bee is flying into my beer" "oh look, a ziggy cartoon"
"EUREKA!!!!! lets call it ZigBee"
"good idea, pass me another beer"
It is capable of connecting 255 devices per network. The spec supports data transmission rates of up to 250kbps at a range of up to 30 meters. ZigBee's technology is slower than 802.11b, at 11 megabits per second, and Bluetooth, at 1mbps, but it consumes significantly less power.
Never believe what you don't read.
Will ZigBee nodes be known as "Zigs"?
TAKE OFF ALL ZIGS
*ducks*
I've determined that several of my IP addresses really should have their own IP addresses! I mean, 10.6.6.6 is pretty lonely there all by himself, I've often thought about the need to assign several IP addresses to him. But then, those IP addresses would need some company of their own...
;)
Who says we don't need millions of addresses per square millimeter of the Earth's surface?! ipv6, here I come, with exponential redundancy! We'll be needing ipv256 in no time
"Do you you have a great idea for a wireless device that really doesn't need the 1 Mbit/sec (and high power consumption) of Bluetooth?
20 kbits/second is too slow for most applications. While perhaps it's sufficient for cellular data, mice, and keyboard, I don't see what else you could use it for. PDA syncing took forever at 56kbit/sec even (thank god for USB). And it certainly couldn't work for wireless phone headsets. "
The question was 'what can you do with it', not 'what can't you do with it'. Saying what it can't do is easy. No idea why you got modded up for that.
"Derp de derp."
wireless keyboards, wireless mice...they all could go with the whole "less battery consumption" idea. maybe those remotes rich people have that control the lights and radios in all 2390847 rooms in their oversized house. With only 20kbits/sec there isn't much that can be done other then controlling electronic devices. It's sure as hell too slow for any data transfer other then plain text.
your sins into me, oh my beautiful one.
You have a good point. The summary says it'll be half the price of bluetooth, but nothing about the fact that it'll only have a fraction of the functionality of bluetooth...
Personally, I don't think there is room for both, so zigbee isn't exactly going to make waves...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
This would be fantastic for billions of devices in the world that don't need massive bandwidth: fire and intrusion alarms, periodic appliance and vehicle telemetry dumps, remote controls for doorknobs and electrical items and so forth, electric and gas meters, cable box uplinks, sump pump failure alarms, water heater leak detectors, etc.
I've long desired to see a dynamically forming pervasive network based on a technology just like this, that would allow your car or child or laptop to tell you (via an embedded transponder) where it went if it got "lost". I'd like a battery-powered alarm in my storage unit that would notify me if someone broke in, or if water was leaking in, or the battery was low. Same goes for my home burglar alarm. It would be nice if you could connect a device to the network for pennies a day. I don't need 128Kbits/sec for a smoke detector (at $60/mo/node over CDMA!!!), but I do need always-on connectivity.
The example you always see about your refrigerator ordering more milk for you is completely stupid, but it would be nice if your washing machine could let the manufacturer know that preventative service was required before it died. Manufacturers would also love to be able to collect test data from deployed devices for defect tracking and analysis.
Presumably wall-powered devices would form more powerful repeaters for the battery-powered nodes, then network nodes would send the traffic through some wired network or the internet for further application-specific routing. Anyway, driving down the cost opens up a dramatic new frontier of wireless applications for any device with a modicum of state or intelligence.
Ahhh Yes... I will stream 20k bits/second of data to all my 8 bit devices hangin around my general area....
sufficient for cellular data, mice, and keyboard
See ? You're already finding something. I would just love the ability to use my keyboard from another room. That's one application.
Remotes in the more generic sense of the word could benefit from that. Every time my son is in from of my DVD player, I can't control it anymore. Of course, that's exactly when I need to press "Pause" because he is about to raise my 4*250W stereo volume knob to it's maximum. IR sucks.
Streaming the display data of a PC playing music (track, time, etc...) is probably another possible application.
This way I can really avoid a stupid, ugly and noisy PC case in my living room. Just pull one cable (Audio/Video) and the rest is remote. The PC will rot and take dust in my garage while I enjoy every kind of I/O in my living room.
Ain't that cool?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Wearable wireless networked devices the size of your watch. You could check your email while sitting in a pool!
But PDA syncing at 20kb/s wouldn't be bad if it could do it automatically & continuously when you are in range of the wireless network.
Bluetooth can't quite hit 1mbit/sec.
There is only one L in Philips.
Philips has been pushing this for two years to various parties (I saw two such presentations) and it has yet to get off the ground. They seem to see it as an X10 replacement. Might be good for that.
I have to admit, my first thought was, "Great, another competing standard to make things more of a pain in the ass, AND it's slower."
Then I realized that such a thing could have some uses. You know those little 8x24 LCD screens? It'd be cool to be able to mount one of those on the front of your monitor with the computer on the floor, without having to string a serial cable. All kinds of uses right there. Mmmm.
SIGFEH
This is a perfect solution for utilities trying to do real time monitoring of the consumption of gas, electricty and water.
This is my sig.
That follows the action as programmed on the 3rd audio channel on DVD's.
"chips available soon for half the cost of bluetooth"
Several years ago Bluetooth claimed to be available soon at low cost. It took longer to solve the problems, and it's cost more than expected at least initially.
Eyes open please.
This could really help with broader data transfer on scientific studies. Remote environmental sensors along a sensitive part of a river transmitting to a data crunch relay, for studying fish habitat comes to mind. The 02 saturation, water temp stream level, even chemical changes could be easily watched during critical periods. I am sure there are very many other uses, building air conditioning zones, dangerous chemical sniffers. Really scookum alarm systems that can send all sorts of local data from different locations to a hub. As far as I am concerned the internet apps would be suitable for text mail, and thats about it but the broader practical applications are huge.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
See my Dad was just wrong.... I shouldn't have gone into Plastic's, I should have gone into Batteries, so I could help all of these Wireless products actually last longer then a month!
now i just have to get my house wired with inductive power sources, then my plan will complete:
to have my computing peripherals all be shiny metal objects with no wires whatsoever.
I know that you speed demons on SlashDot laugh at anything this "low-speed", but for me this is a GODSEND. All I've ever wanted is a low-speed, low-power, reliable wireless tech that would let me bop around the apartment with a laptop and stay telnetted into my server (from which I connect to MU*s and read my email in PINE). I don't need 11Mbps, or 1Mbps, or even .5Mbps. This is exactly what I need, and it looks like the price is right.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Microsoft.Com doesn't need anything over a few kbps.
Tastes bitter to me. Am I doing something wrong? The smell seems to block out the taste.
What be the trick?
Can you tell from drinking somebody else's what they have been eating?
Why do people (well, mostly Americans) never write Motorolla, but too often write Phillips where it should be Philips. Or do people really think that an oil company is suddenly going into wireless electronics. Mmmm, with McDonalds going into the WiFi ISP business, you never know. And maybe those French fries are coming out of a pan of Phillips 66. :-).
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Two years ago, I had the privilage of participating in the IEEE Computer Soceity International Design Competition 2001, which gave university students (such as myself) the opportunity to build something useful out of Bluetooth. Back then, Bluetooth had been The Next Big Thing (tm) for maybe a year. The competition gave me a first-hand look at why Bluetooth is still The Next Big Thing (tm), two years later.
Two years ago, Bluetooth seemed to be doing everything right. Created by Ericsson, and supported by 3Com, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia and Toshiba, it couldn't help but succeed. In the buzzword-compatible trade press, Bluetooth, and the Personal Area Networks it creates, are destined to change the way our handheld computing devices communicate with each other. That's great -- I'd love to use my Visor to read Slashdot headlines, using my wireless phone for its Internet connection. Bluetooth has a great vision, but (at least two years ago) it lacks something far more important: superior development tools. Without worthwhile development tools, and the documentation to back them up, only those with large pockets and iron wills will succeed. Curious students (like myself two years ago) will turn away sadly, wishing there were more, but doubting anything will ever happen.
Why is it important that the small developers get involved? Palm created the handheld market not only by having a low-cost, easy-to-use handheld, but by allowing any kid in his parents' basement to develop PalmOS applications. Ninty-five percent of them may have been crap, but five percent of all the world's Palm-programming geeks is still a whole lot of stuff to attract the Palm-using masses.
ZigBee looks fascinating, and it's something I'll keep my eye on, but unless they learn from Bluetooth's mistakes, it'll be a lot of radio noise for nothing.
time to other devices (or vice/versa if it's a clock that set's itself from the Colorado time signal like mine)
I could see joysticks using this.
Light switches ala X-10.
Water meters, power meters, gas meters, wireless thermometers and other sensors.
VCR's could use it as an interface to allow configuration from a computer.
TV's could use it as a way to implement a universal RF remote control.
Apparently they already thought of some of these ideas.
From the ZigBee FAQ:
* Wireless home security
* Remote thermostats for air conditioner
* Remote lighting, drape controller
* Call button for elderly and disabled
* Universal remote controller to TV and radio
* Wireless keyboard, mouse and game pads
* Wireless smoke, CO detectors
* Industrial and building automation and control (lighting, etc.)
Then you could combine a few of these things to implement something the detects when it's too hot inside and it's colder outside and the humidity outside isn't too bad, turn on a fan. This is otherwise very complicated but hook up a few thermometers, a humidity sensor and a switch that are all accessible from a computer and it gets very easy.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
ASTRX1
This is old hat now.
Sadly, I must agree with you 100%.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
"What's the point? Too slow. (Score:-1, Interesting) " -- how often do you see a -1, Interesting?
"Derp de derp."
"Corporations don't care about geological artifacts"
Huh?
Like I said: you stupid fuckers deserve every single lost job you create.
OT, but yes it does. This scared the /hell/ out of me when I first saw it (thought it was a dead pixel) until I realized it was moving.
The MAN with a PLAN to give us a PAN? Will some slashdot-reading genius/wacko set up some ZigBee repeaters across the country and create his own WAN?
This would be nice for a weather station. Just mount it on the roof and then put the receiver in the house somewhere within range. The whole thing could be solar powered on the roof. No need to run a cable or power unit up there.
Hopefully handhelds and remote controls pick it up too so we can control the Stereo/TV/Media Center with our Handhelds and not have to worry about leaving the door to the entertainment center open.
Talking on finding something; hopefully it could be used for a transmitter/receiver in my keychain, my PDA, my wallet, and my phone handset that I can use to triangulate their position when I want to find the darn things! Then I wouldn't spend so much time running around looking for them when I want to go out.
a.
That is so true, I don't even know why I didn't think about it!!!!!
MOD PARENT UP!!!!!!
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Here's a question: What about security? And not just for this "ZigBee" system, but for wireless networking and Bluetooth as well. Don't you think that with these PAN networks, security is going to be important?
Since I saw a Bluetooth keyboard the other day, I laughed and realised that keystroke loggers are obsolete. Why should a cracker go to the trouble of futzing around trying to get a user to install a trojan or leave a port open, when they can just point a hi-gain antenna at his desktop and read what the user's typing on the keyboard.
Hasn't anyone noticed all the hassle and screaming and yelling about the crappy security WEP provides? See http://www.starkrealities.com/wireless003.html The reason that happened is that people found out that when wireless networking is used, CRACKERS BREAK IN THROUGH THE CRAPPY SECURITY. Then they mess with your systems, steal your data and zombify your servers!
In the case of 802.11?? the crackers had to be withing a few yards to break in. With a PAN, they have to be within a few feet. Maybe you live in a lead-lined cavern all alone, but most people who use tech are walking around and sitting down next to people all the time. So if you just go and sit in a waiting room while using Bluetooth or some other PAN, the person sitting behind you pretending to play games on his PDA is breaking into your systems and slurping all your passwords and credit card numbers while you sit there none the wiser.
This looks like a security nightmare. Who wants that?
Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
This sounds like a great device for all those wireless sensor networks talked about in industries such as military, environmental, and house wares. It'll be great if anyone can use the protocol (i.e. nobody specifically owns it and licenses it out) so that anyone can design and market devices that use it. I see a lot of potential for my house to communicate with me through my computer.
Someone modded this down, but I have to totally agree:
Blah bluetooth blah wireless blah technology...
You are all missing the big picture. Many of us have been predicting it and now you are seeing it come to life: insane US "intellectual property" laws, a patent system run amouck, and copyright laws completely written - and now enforced - by corporations, are going to destroy this country's place in the world.
Corporations don't care about geological artifacts; corporations don't care about people aside from their ability to generate revenue. We've already seen (in proverbial spades) how willing and able corporations can move from place to place. In their path they exploit every resource they can find until it is utterly exhausted; when US borne technology is no longer cost effective the world's corporations will not hesitate to use those derived elsewhere.
In short, life will go on - it always does. But in the process the US is quickly losing it's lead in the technology marketplace.
Can't really say I care. In fact, I'm kinda laughing because americans in general seem to be so incredibly fucking stupid and apathetic on these matters they're getting exactly what they deserve. But it is surely happening - from linux to AVS streaming video to "zigbee" wireless, the west is about to vividly realize what it means when you pass laws that encourage job migration to other nations WHILE passing laws that, at the same time, make your technology more expensive than any other. You might as well just raise taxes now and get that final nail driven while there's still someone here to dig the grave.
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
That's "Take off every 'ZIG'!" For great justice, of course. CATS is behind this. Or some other affiliated force. The tradename "ZigBee" is clearly an amalgamation of bad Japanese shoot-'em-ups (TwinBee and Zero Wing!)
But seriously. I could see this replacing/augmenting RFID at high-ticket stores, and perhaps being integrated into name badges or pagers... now you can take your IMs and emails with you.
But it's basically text-only due to the low bandwidth, so... this is an interesting development, and if the price tag gets low enough surely we can think of many more applications.
"I am root. Bow before me." To this I say, "You are root, and you bear the sins of the world upon your shoulders."
What Amp(s) do you have that pushes 4*250W?
yea, it would be great to use the keyboard from the other room, even better if you could still see the monitor!!
as for the IR remote, try pointing the thing at the celing, most people have white celings, and they reflect enough of the IR to let you go around your stone deaf son.
You do realize that there are still uses for cheap old Z80A microprocessors, too, what with latest Pentium 9 and UltraSparc VI chips? Don't underestimate different niches that exist for components that have different power/price characteristics.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Well, they say that 255 can exist on one network, or 4000 on the largest possible arrangement. This would imply you could have a mesh of 16 networks.
One interesting point about Zigbee is that its design will allow for easier formation of multi-hop networks, something that is sorely lacking with Bluetooth. Bluetooth nodes are required to establish connections, choose to be either master or slave nodes, under a whole load of annoying restrictions such as inability to be a slave of more than two masters at once, inability to be a master to more than 7 active slaves, etc. Totally adverse to a nice mesh topology like one can set up with CSMA/CA radios. On top of that, thanks to frequency hopping, discovery in Bluetooth takes about 5-10 seconds, and connection setup 1-4 under reasonable settings... quite irritating.
for some lazy eletrical engineering types (or just lazy) that want to control the lights, cook diner, turn on the tv, open the garage, start the car, lock the doors, change the enviroment settings (AC, heating, sound), and much much more without ever leaving the computer . Americans could become even fatter and if we could just embed this into your glasses and finally figure out a powered chair that can handle stairs we wouldn't even have to worry about moving anything more than our fingers.
-Tim Louden
I would like to have a communication method that was so cheap that it could be built into everything. My $10 alarm clock for example. I'd like to hold it next to a Palm or something and have automatically sync to my time and alarm wake-up already set in the Palm Pilot. (Which is of couse syncronized through NTP or direct GPS connection.)
So lets say I go to a hotel, and the hotel has an alarm clock that I can't figure out how to set correctly (happens a lot) -- I could just beam the current time and alarm time on to the alarm clock. It would save me from actually trying to set the thing correctly, which I haven't figured out how to do.
Put a whole Bluetooth implementation on it and your already out of price range.
Another thing, my POTS phone.. It has all these memory buttons that you can program. I'm not gonna waste my time trying to figure it out. But if I could set the phone to accept entries from Outlook or something.. That'd be great. USB or Bluetooth is just too damn much for my little $12 phone with 20 memories. But that would be the only way I'd ever make use of the memory function. It would also be cool to be able to import my caller ID stuff before deleting it.
The slashdot wireless transport protocol will be henceforth called "GritzPants."
FWIW, a new book, "Wireless Sensor Networks: Architectures and Protocols" is to be published this month. It covers required protocol stack features and node implementation techniques, and includes a chapter on both IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee.
That analogy is so flawed, I'm not sure where to start... How about compatibility?
Your VCR can be using a Z80, and your DVD player can be using a fast PPC chip, and they can communicate without problems. That's not the case with Bluetooth/Zigbee.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Geez
Right, and what the article says is the word of God right? Any slight variation from the summary will be punishable by death...
Saying it's useless for just about everything is quite insightful... It might be half the price, but it is a tiny fraction of the speed of bluetooth, and incompatible with bluetooth as well... I can't see any reason that it will be used for anything, quite frankly. Sure, it could be used for many things, but in the real world, it won't be.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If only it managed 32k it would make a wonderful replacement for MIDI cables. I could then walk round while playing without having to keep my eyes on the tangle of wires underfoot.
Still, you didn't claim something is impossible, just that you don't believe Zigbee has a chance... fair enough, not much point to argue further. Time will tell how things go.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Right, and what the article says is the word of God right? Any slight variation from the summary will be punishable by death..."
Not even close, sorry. Nice attempt to try whore karma points by attacking my statement in the most Jerry Springer'ish way.
"Saying it's useless for just about everything is quite insightful."
Nope, completely unhelpful. It is in no way insightful. It is a waste of everybody's time. If this was the general attitude people had, then computers would never have gotten off the ground. They'd never do video, they'd never do 3D, heck they'd never do sound. "Who would buy a 'sound card' just to hear midi crap?" Again, there is nothing insightful at all by saying something can't do something.
" It might be half the price, but it is a tiny fraction of the speed of bluetooth, and incompatible with bluetooth as well... "
It still does stuff, therefore it is not useless.
"I can't see any reason that it will be used for anything, quite frankly."
This gets back to your "Saying it's useless for just about everything is quite insightful" comment. You stopped thinking about it. Never mind the benefits to cost and battery life, you've wiped it out.
"Sure, it could be used for many things, but in the real world, it won't be. "
If people say "it won't it won't it won't", then you are right, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Never mind what it could be used for, it doesn't instantly wow people so just forget it. Heh.
"Derp de derp."
I'm maxed out in karma points actually... No reason to whore.
Any "Jerry Springer'ish way" you see is all in your own head... I was just trying to get a point across.
Man, and you say my comments are Jerry Springer-esque... Nobody is saying that wireless should be shuned, which means you are completely off the subject, and ranting about something entirely unrelated. What is being said, is that this specific technology is next to useless, especially when compared to bluetooth. Wireless is not going to fall by the wayside because Zigbee happens to pale in comparison to the alternatives.
Give me a break. Let's think of all the old technology that has been replaced by newer technology...
With something better available, YES, the less useful technology is then considered useless. In this specific case, that situation is even amplified, because this technology has practically no redeming factors compared to bluetooth, whereas most older technology still has some interesting benefit over it's replacement.
No, I mentioned the (potential--remeber, this is still speculation) cost benefit, but the performance trade-off, for such a small benefit is not one that practically anyone will make. I did not mention the battery-life benefits, because they too are nominal. You don't see each new remote control using some different IR wavelength, frequency, etc., just for some trivial improvements in battery life, at the expense of compatibility.
Geez. If I say it's useless, it is by no means a self-fulfilling prophecy, because I do not have control over the design and manufacture of every device this could potentially be used for. Also, wow appeal only matters in end-user products... Something like this which will be embedded into devices will be chosen (or not chosen in this case) by individuals who get paid to make the best choices, and will educate themselves on the technology and it's pros and cons. I would say Firewire is the best example of this... Despite the Intel/USB hub-hub, Firewire is still totally in control of anything that needs more than USB1.1 speeds, despite the fact that USB2 theoretically could handle the job. USB2 may have more customer appeal, but Firewire is the better technology, and it gets used where it should, because device manufacturers ignore the hype, and choose what is best (in most cases).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
' In this specific case, that situation is even amplified, because this technology has practically no redeming factors compared to bluetooth, whereas most older technology still has some interesting benefit over it's replacement."
Except battery life and cost...
"Derp de derp."
Please let this signal the increased availability and competiveness of wireless keyboards, mice, computer speakers, digital cameras, and so on. It looks like a big family of garter snakes lives behind my computer right now. And no more of this antenna crap either -- what the hell is the point of wireless if you still have wires AND AN EXTRA FRICKIN' DEVICE ON YOUR DESKTOP! Damn, do I ever hate the current generation of RF devices.
Hum, dude, it said 20 BITS/s, not 20 kb/s ;)