Telink | Zigbee: A Well-Established Low-Power

Protocol

Telink Staff

Zigbee is a mature low-power protocol standard for supporting wireless smart device
connectivity.

Devices on wireless sensor networks need to support long battery life and a sufficient range. Zigbee
dates from 2004, making it one of the oldest smart home connectivity standards for creating low-
power mesh networks. It’s known for its mature network performance and interoperability.

Although Zigbee does not lead the pack in terms of market share, it’s likely to continue to grow in
use moving forward, especially for commercial and residential lighting, and in-home automation
for last-hop connectivity.

The Evolution of Zigbee

Developed as an open global standard to address the unique needs of low-cost, low-power wireless
IoT networks, Zigbee operates on the IEEE 802.15.4 physical radio specification and in unlicensed
bands, including 2.4 GHz, 900 MHz, and 868 MHz. Characterized by secure, reliable wireless
network architectures, the Zigbee protocol stack includes:

Support for multiple network topologies, such as point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, and mesh
networks

Low latency with a long battery life

Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)

Up to 65,000 nodes per network

128-bit AES encryption for secure data connections

The ratification of Zigbee 3.0 builds on the existing Zigbee standard with added security and
market-specific profiles for interoperability among products from different manufacturers. As
such, all devices — regardless of market designation and function — can be wirelessly connected in
the same network.

As mentioned earlier, a key component of the Zigbee protocol is the ability to support mesh
networking. The self-healing nature of Zigbee mesh networks allows nodes to drop out of the
network without any disruption to internal routing.

Additionally, because of Zigbee’s low bandwidth requirements, a Zigbee node can sleep most of the
time, thus saving battery power. To conserve power, it can wake up, send data quickly, and then go
back to sleep, all within 15 msec or less. With such a quick transition time, even a sleeping node
can achieve low latency.

According to the Connectivity Standard Alliance, in 2021, Zigbee continued to evolve by

introducing new features including Zigbee Direct, a new Zigbee Sub-GHz solution, and
collaboration with the DALI Alliance.
Best Uses Cases for Zigbee

Zigbee is a secure network technology that operates on IEEE 802.15.4 radio standard, enabling
broad-based deployment of wireless networks with low-cost, low-power solutions. Last year, the
Connectivity Standards Alliance reported that over a half-billion Zigbee chipsets have been sold
and expected that nearly four billion would ship by 2023.

With the ability to run for years on inexpensive batteries, it is ideal for a host of medium-range
wireless monitoring and control applications with an even distribution of nodes in close proximity.
This includes smart energy/smart grid, AMR (Automatic Meter Reading), lighting controls, home
automation systems, tank monitoring, HVAC control, and medical devices.

Telink Can Help You Deploy Zigbee as a Standard

Zigbee’s full-stack platform is mature, reliable, and highly flexible and was built for the IoT from
the ground up. Its open standard protocol lets manufacturers build interoperable ecosystems
without having to worry about battery life. Telink is a member of the Connectivity Standards
Alliance, and Telink products have passed Zigbee 3.0 Ready Platform + GreenPower Certification,
Zigbee Pro Compliant Platform, RF4CE, ZRC 2.0, and ZHA/ZLL Certification.

Telink is prepared to help you achieve long battery life and deploy any low-power standards —
including Zigbee — depending on your application’s needs.

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our Technical Forum or by contacting us directly today.