The Zigbee protocol is a short-range, low-power, and low-rate wireless communication protocol based on 80215.4 standards, which are often used in the field of Internet of Things, also have some applications in the field of personal households. Zigbee name** refers to bees that rely on the dance of buzzing (zig) vibrating wings to convey information.
Zigbee network architecture.
Low power consumption: Two batteries can be used for about half a year to two years, with very low power consumption and can run for a long time.
Low cost: For manufacturers, it is royalty-free. As for the hardware cost, the current cost of Zigbee modules in 2024 is about $2, and it continues to decline, and it is estimated that it may only be $1 in the future. In addition, its ** size is much smaller than Bluetooth and wifi, and the corresponding Zigbee products have less requirements for microcontrollers and memory resources, so that the manufacturing integration cost is also relatively low.
Low rate: The rate is 20-250kbps, which is relatively low.
Short distance: The transmission distance is usually within 100 meters.
Short latency: The delay is about 15-30ms.
High capacity: Theoretically, a Zigbee network can accommodate up to 65,535 nodes, due to the fact that the Zigbee protocol is based on IEEE 80215.4 standard, the address space is 16 bits, which means that there can be up to 2 16 - 1 = 65,535 different network addresses, but in practical applications, the number of direct child nodes per zigbee network is limited to 254, this is because part of the 16-bit address is used to identify the devices in the network, and the other part is used to identify the relationship between parent nodes and child nodes, while also considering factors such as broadcast addresses, reserved addresses, etc.
High security: ** security mode, the first level of non-security mode (no security), no encryption or authentication mechanism is used between devices, and data is transmitted in clear text; The second-level Access Control List (ACL) security mode uses ACL to prevent unauthorized devices from accessing the network or obtaining data. High Security Mode, which is encrypted with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES 128-bit) and authenticated using network keys, application secrets, and shared keys between devices.
Operating frequency bands: mainly operating in three frequency bands, 868 MHz in the European band, 902 MHz to 928 MHz in the North American band, and ISM (industrial, scientific and medical) band 2The 4 GHz band, which is currently more widely used, is 24G band.
Network architecture: It supports three forms: star, mesh, and tree.
Device type: Coordinator, router, and device terminal. The coordinator is the core of the network, responsible for the formation and management of the entire network, in addition to sending and receiving data, the router can also be used as a relay, similar to mesh networking, the device terminal is a simplified device, used to collect data, and connect with the coordinator and the router.
Zigbee has encryption, authentication, key management and access control mechanisms, which is relatively secure, and the encryption uses AES-128, but no network is completely secure.