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Wireless Networking Hardware

ZigBee Wireless Standard Ratified 128

Posted by michael from the do-you-zig? dept.
ductormalef writes "Today, the ZigBee Alliance announced the release (pdf) of version 1.0. ZigBee is a standard for low data-rate (250kbps max) wireless personal area networks (WPANs). It utilizes the IEEE 802.15.4 hardware and MAC layers which utilize frequency bands at 898MHz, 902-928MHz, and 2.4GHz. ZigBee supports mesh networking and claims to be 'wireless control that simply works.' They claim to be a solution to everything from wireless home automation to industrial control."
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ZigBee Wireless Standard Ratified More

ZigBee Wireless Standard Ratified

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  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tuxedo Jack ( 648130 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @04:23PM (#11085634) Homepage
    I guess you could say this is...

    ZIG-nigificant?

    Or that we should take off every Zig?

    Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week.
    • If Apple adopts this we might well see a situation where iZig.

      Of course, if you use a competing product it might well turn out that uZag, but we'll deal with that issue when we come to it.

      KFG

    • Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Kenshin ( 43036 ) <`ac.skrowranul' `ta' `nihsnek'> on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @04:37PM (#11085820) Homepage
      Standard approved! Launch all ZigBee!

      • Re:So... (Score:2, Funny)

        by kfg ( 145172 )
        Launch all ZigBee!

        As with all new "standards," however, just be careful not to get stung (as some have gotten bit by Bluetooth).

        KFG
      • Download every PDF. For great justice!

        I'm just kind of annoyed that they couldn't accomplish the same functionality with Bluetooth radios. I mean really, do I want to carry around YET ANOTHER thing? I already tote around a Bluetooth cell phone, Bluetooth Tungsten PDA, and RF car keys for my truck and my wife's car. And none of those transmitters are in any way, shape or form compatible with Zigbee.

        This, combined with the dropping of R&D on Bluetooth, have dashed my hopes that a new Bluetooth prot

        • Re:So... (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          The deal is you can't accomplish the same thing with a Bluetooth radio. Bluetooth radios are legacy frequency hoppers. The two major problems they have are poor receiver sensitivity and slow network synchronization times.

          Receive sensitivity matters because half your range is in the last 3dBm. Or better most of you're quality of service is in the last 10-30 db. Bluetooths receiver gain (-70dBm) is horrid as a result of the coding scheme used. Also because Bluetooth is a frequency hopper, once a device p
          • Thank you, thank you! That's a great explanation, and it's just what I wanted to know.

            My question was along the lines of "if they have a transmitter plus software, what's to stop them from sending short burst packets?" I figured that with software, they could develop a new protocol using the existing hardware, that wouldn't require establishment of a session. Your explanation of frequency hopping plus poor receiver sensitivity puts the idea of a single burst packet firmly in the grave.

            Thanks again!

          • Now I'll admin that radio theory isn't my specialty; but "legacy frequency hoppers"? Seems to me that most moderns systems (like WiFi) use frequency hopping.

            And you claim that Bluetooth is useless for keyboards and mice, yet many seem to be using it just fine right now. (There is a significant lag at start up though, that is quite correct.) When in use there is no real issue with lag however.

            Furthermore R&D on Bluetooth isn't ended. Ericsson (creator or Bluetooth) has disbanded their own team for deve
            • I don't think it was a troll, for many reasons. I was asking about a "UDP-like" protocol that could be used for consumer remote controls. In my mind, this means "quick response time" -- if you press channel up, you expect the channel to go up now, not two seconds from now. (A mute button that took over a second to quiet the annoying Menards' guy would really get on my nerves quickly.)

              Look at his phrase this way: legacy "frequency hoppers". He's saying the hardware that is out there now is frequency h

              • The genereal idea for AVRCP is really for it to be used when there already is a audio or video connection in place. Eg if you have headphones and listen to streamed audio you should be able to alter the volume/skip tracks etc directly from the headphones. (And any changes made on the sender should be communicated with the headphones.)

                So it's not really a typical remote like you requested. (Though it could possibly be used as such.) OTOH the same idea of using hinting to pre-start the Bluetooth connection c
        • This, combined with the dropping of R&D on Bluetooth, have dashed my hopes that a new Bluetooth protocol to do UDP-style messages for remote control will ever happen.

          I suppose now the race is on to see who can make the most incompatible Zigbee TVs, VCRs etc. Sony sure as hell won't want their TV remotes to magically work with JVC surround sound amplifiers.
          First off, the acclaimed dropped development of Bluetooth is not true and a misunderstanding of the issue. See other post (by me) in this thread.

          Sec
          • Well Bluetooth has AVRCP. But it is a connected profile, not broadcast.

            It bothers me too that there are so many standards on 2.4GHz, some of which just avoid each other and others interfere, but none of them inter-operate. I think the next generation of standards should all use the same spread-spectrum method (DSS vs. hopping, if that flamewar is ever resolved) and the same frequency-choosing algorithms, and use ultra-wide-band signalling, while still permitting inter-operation of devices at different po
            • The capacitor idea is kind of neat, but won't work in practice if you're looking for fast response time (remote control buttons.) Capacitors discharge through internal leakage over time, and so won't hold a charge for an extended period of disuse. You'd kill the battery trying to keep it topped off.

              It'd work fine in the sensor arena if you're not looking for real-time response, or if you're looking at scheduled transmission times -- charge the capacitor in advance of transmission, or send the signal a c

    • So I'm going to have to carry a WiFi CF card, a bluetooth CF card and now a ZigBee CF card?!?

      Why should this replace bluetooth?
      • According to an article I read in New Scientist [newscientist.com] (can't find it online atm), chips in a Zigbee networks are programmed to synchronise their transmissions, so that they are all either switched on or in sleep mode at the same time. Since Bluetooth is always listening out for transmissions, it means that they can drain the batteries of whatever item in a short period of time. This is fine for a laptop or a cell phone, that is recharged often, but can lead to disaster if you're not near a charger.
        Zigbee devic
        • Since Bluetooth is always listening out for transmissions, it means that they can drain the batteries of whatever item in a short period of time.
          Incorrect, Bluetooth support several different power modes. Sleep being but one of them.
    • No, it just means
      • you can have a wireless zigarette lighter
      • you can have a Slashdot zignature
      • you can have a shrink named Zigmund Freud
      • David Bowie will release a new album named Zigbee Stardust
        • Zigbee played wireless guitar ...

      Thank you ... you're very kind ... thank, you, really, this is embarassing, folks ... thank you.

  • Just when i went out and designed my PAN around bluetooth!!!

    • Re:bluetooth (Score:3, Insightful)

      by harrkev ( 623093 )
      Bluetooth is better -- it has a better name.

      Think about it. Blades became the rage a while ago. Blade = sharp. Bluetooth. Tooth=sharp. I always liked firewire just because of the name. IEEE1394 is just not the same.

      ZigBee. Well, I guess Bee=stinger=sharp, but that is stretching it. Especially with a nonsensical "Zig" thrown in.

      This might sound funny, but the name is the thing, especially in corporations.

      And we can replace your aging web servers with our new "FuzzyBunny" servers, with exclusive

    • A deadlocked government would be the best thing to happen to this country since the revolution.

      Well, since the Reagan years anyway. Or the maybe the Clinton years. A sitting president with a hosilte congress can't do too much harm, and vice-versa. Which is why the economic Waring blender was set to "purée" [1] during both the Reagan and Clinton administrations.

      [1] Wording completely stolen from P.J. O'Rourke.
      • I was going on the theory that a lack of any new laws can do nothing but help a country.

        All the important laws have been pounded out a LONG time ago. Don't kill people. Don't steal.

        New laws just muddy the waters...

        • Defining "stealing" has proven very, very difficult throughout history. Feudal societies, debtors prisons, and communist revolutions were all casued by different interpretations of what is or can be property, and who "owns" what.

          Witness the recent RIAA/MPAA flap, and all of the financial services regulations enforced by agencies like the SEC. Both involve laws designed to prevent "stealing".

  • Industrial? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vasqzr ( 619165 ) <vasqzr@nosPAM.netscape.net> on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @04:25PM (#11085659)


    ZigBee supports mesh networking and claims to be 'wireless control that simply works.' They claim to be a solution to everything from wireless home automation to industrial control.

    We'll see how this works. The last factory we worked in, we had to use fiber (10MB at that) because cables would have too much interference.

    • Yeah, it would be great if a piece of production machinery craps out because someone wanted a bag of microwave popcorn...

    • ... or even work in the same plant with one.
    • X interfered with technology Y, so lets crap on technology Z. How exactly is the parent insightful? This comment is FUD at its finest. Interference has less to do with the transport medium (air, copper) and everything to do with physics (frequencies, etc.). There's nothing to say that because machinery interfered with the signal in a cable that it will interfere with ZigBee going over the air.

      By your logic, "My computer interferes with my AM radio. So I doubt wireless networking will work on my comp
      • Ever turn on a spectrum analyzer near an arc welder? Ever seen the emissions from an unfiltered HVAC servo motor? Ever have to spend an entire g*d-damn week onsite, 16 hours per day, trying to locate the source of some noxious RF interference seven days before your systems go live for their VIP grand opening?

        Industrial equipment isn't FCC regulated to not produce spurious emissions the way home equipment is. A lot of the machinery in your average older shop was built in the 1940s for the war effort. E

  • Simply works? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BBrown ( 70466 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @04:25PM (#11085664)
    "ZigBee: Wireless Control that Simply Works"

    From my days in compsci classes, anything that simply works usually isn't working at all.
    • . . .anything that simply works usually isn't working at all.

      But at least you can't fix it, so you've got that going for you.

      KFG
    • Dilbert's buying a computer, and the salesman shows him one, saying, "This is our easiest-to-use computer. It's only got one button. All you have to do is click it!"

      Dilbert: "But what does it do?"

      Salesman: "Woah there! You're beyond me. Here's the number for tech support!"

      (BTW, I don't have the strip handy, so the quotes may be approximate.)

      • I'm way off the original topic here, but your Dilbert reminded me of one of my favorites [nellco.org].

        Dilbert, examining two network cables as the pointy haired boss looks on: Here's you problem. The connection to the network is broken.

        Dilbert: Uh oh. It's a "token ring" LAN. That means the token fell out and it's in this room someplace.

        In the background, the PHB can be seen on the floor, peering beneath his desk, trying to find the token. In the foreground, Wally says to Dilbert: You are the wind beneath my wings.

        D
    • Feh, it doesn't say for who !
    • Don't confuse 'simply works' with 'working simply'
  • How can it be a "standard" when it was just released?

    Putting the gas pedal on the right and the brake on the left is a standard--it is so universal that it invites no question as to its applicability.

    This is not a standard yet, it is a specification. Let's get something right for once around here.

    On topic remark: I can't wait for more interference from paging transmitters on 928MHz and between data devices on 2.4GHz. Oh, joy!

    • Putting the gas pedal on the right and the brake on the left is a standard

      Actually, I think I'd call that sort of thing a "convention".

      But it doesn't really matter what we think. IEEE "standards" are called such because they are released by the IEEE Standards Association. If you implement it, then you are complying with that "standard".

    • Exactly. The IEEE publishes the standard. The Zigbee Alliance publishes a specification which makes sure that products that meet the standard work together (there's usually some grey areas in the standard).

      It's a standard, alright. Whether it gets into widespread use is another question (anyone remember OSI?) and that depends on having products quickly.

      But it seems like Zigbee is onto this one, with some pretty aggressive plans ( interview with the Zigbee chair [techworld.com] I mentioned earlier).

      Peter Judge
      Tec
      • Quoth JudgeCorp:
        It's a standard, alright. Whether it gets into widespread use is another question (anyone remember OSI?) and that depends on having products quickly.
        Well, given that the companies [zigbee.org] in the alliance include Motorola, Honeywell, Samsung, Philips, NEC and Mitsubishi Electric, I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss them.
    • I've seen working devices 2 years ago. Alpha stage probably, but working.
    • You missunderstand the meaning of standard. A standard doesn't mean everyone uses it and becomes widely accepted, it's simply a synonym for specification. The difference is a standard is an official specification made by some widely recognized body, in this case the IEEE.

    • in the it world there are two kinds of standards. one is the de-facto (ex: microsoft office filetypes), allso know as a standard set by getting the most users. then you have a official standard (ex: html), this is one where all the documentation on how it works and so on are 99% of the time in the public domain (available for everyone to read and implement) but most likely watched over by some independent third party (in the zigbee case, IEEE. unless im misstaken). official standards, when followed are good
  • with some of the worst latency you ever saw:P
    While it would be cool to have location based clusters, there probably aren't very many problems they can solve because of those latency or bandwidth issues.
    Wow, this comment is really pointless.

  • ...if this PANs out. ZING!

    No seriously, is that a PAN in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

    But really folks, I'm going to have to see if I can cook up a little network of my o-*head cut off by ninja*

  • Uh oh... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bomjolo ( 840315 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @04:28PM (#11085700)
    A new door opens in the world of aerial communism...

  • bluetooth called (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @04:33PM (#11085760)
    it wants its idea back

    • Re:bluetooth called (Score:5, Informative)

      by Excelsior ( 164338 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @05:56PM (#11086941)
      I know you are telling a joke, but I'm not sure whether it is more humorous or innacurate.

      I suggest reading a nice summary over at MIT Technology Review [technologyreview.com].

      But since you obviously don't read the articles, let me cover it for you:
      - Zigbee is power efficient. A ZigBee switch should be able to run off watch batteries for years. Bluetooth - HA!
      - Zigbee stack is a small 28k. Bluetooth's stack is 250k.
      - Zigbee networks can support up to 255 nodes, and can be switched to 16 bit addressing to support 65,000 nodes. Bluetooth can have 8 active nodes, 255 total.
      - Zigbee range is around 30 meters. Bluetooth is 10 meters.
      - Zigbee supports three network topologies (star, mesh, cluster tree). Bluetooth supports a dynamic piconet topology.
      - Zigbee enabled devices can be built cheaply. Bluetooth was *supposed* to be cheap. This is due to the short stack.

      And the list goes on. See the ZigBee FAQ [zigbee.org].

      Zigbee is designed for a very specific application (switching, censors, controllers, etc.). And by this list, you can see that it was specifically designed to meet the needs of that application. Bluetooth does not and cannot support that application, just like Zigbee cannot support the application Bluetooth was designed for (cable replacement).
      • Zigbee is designed for a very specific application (switching, censors, controllers, etc.). And by this list, you can see that it was specifically designed to meet the needs of that application.

        Censors and controllers get their own networking technology! What will they think of next? Accountants and payroll clerks to use new networking technology dubbed Zilch?
      • Another "Bluetooth is dead" story. Haven't we had enough of these already? The funny thing is that when I read that list of features I got reminded of everything that Bluetooth promised before the first commerical products were launched. We'll see what things are like when we have commerical products for sale.
        • This is not a "Bluetooth is dead story." It is about a different product to suit a different application. Please read my post that you replied to, because you clearly miss the point.
  • Could this possiblly kill blue tooth? Is blue tooth the next BSD?
    • No. ZigBee is a very low-bandwidth, low-power *protocol*. Just as Bluetooth is a protocol with higher brandwidth and higher power demands. There are very few applications where you could justify using both of these protocols.
    • Zigbee could care less about Bluetooth. It's after a much bigger area (sensors) that Bluetooth doesn't touch.

      If Bluetooth dies of its own accord, Zigbee could take up some of the slacek according to Bob Heile of the Alliance (did I mention my interview with him [techworld.com] too many times already?)

      Peter Judge
      Techworld
    • No, they're both dead at the hands of 802.11[fill in your favorite suffix]. Given that Zigbee and Bluetooth both have no security to speak of and never will, and the cost of 802.11[whatever] continues to drop, neither are worth investing or developing in.

      Lots of people will spend lots of money with very exciting business plans and do the development for the niche applications used by others, but none of the developers or patent owners will get back the money they wasted on it.
  • Isn't Bluetooth making gains in that niche?

  • $5 chips by March, says Mr Zigbee - Bob Heile (Score:5, Interesting)

    by judgecorp ( 778838 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @04:39PM (#11085846) Homepage
    Zigbee chips will be available for $5 in the first quarter of 2005, according to Bob Heile of the Zigbee Alliance. I had a long interview with him [techworld.com] about Zigbee's prospects. He clearly enjoys his work.

    Zigbee will be big in phones, and he reckons it's on target for 5 million units by the end of 2005.

    Peter Judge. Techworld
    • Zigbee will be big in phones, and he reckons it's on target for 5 million units by the end of 2005.

      Vendors shipped 165 million cell phones worldwide in the third quarter of 2004. In-start/MDR predicts 653 million units [com.com] to be shipped this year. So, even by 2004 numbers, Zigbee will be in less than 1% of new cell phones shipped next year if they hit their target. Bluetooth, on the other hand, ships two million units per week [techweb.com] in various devices. Perhaps it "will be big", but you need far stronger numbers

      • Well, it's certainly coming on quicker than Bluetooth. When bluetooth was launched, $5 units were a distant prospect, and Zigbee is starting at that point. Sure it's big for phones, but it is the right start.

        The 5 million units won't be in phones, but to get to 1% of something as established as Bluetooth in one year, is pretty good (and well beyond what Bluetooth did at that stage).

        And Heile certainly didn't think Zigbee would only make 5 million. He said it would make more than that, but he didn't
        • Well, it's certainly coming on quicker than Bluetooth. When bluetooth was launched, $5 units were a distant prospect, and Zigbee is starting at that point. Sure it's big for phones, but it is the right start.

          Even if I grant you "right start", would you agree that it's still a long way from "it will be big in phones"?

          The 5 million units won't be in phones, but to get to 1% of something as established as Bluetooth in one year, is pretty good

          Correction: if they sell 5 million units in the first year, it

    • Chipcon [chipcon.com] and Motorola [motorola.com] are both producing 2.4GHz Zigbee RFIC's now. They are fairly inexpensive, about $4.50 each in 1k qty. ZMD [zmd.biz] will be releasing 900MHz Zigbee RFIC's very soon. Licensing the stack from one of these company's partners adds about $0.50 but of course you could always roll your own.

  • price sensitive (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LordMyren ( 15499 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @04:54PM (#11086010) Homepage
    zigbee is aimed at very price sensitive markets, but has one currently fatal flaw:
    you have to purchase software stacks.

    most any hardware a developer buys is worthless without another huge investment in a software stack to run the standard.

    some people are just using a zigbee's basic transmit/recieve functionality withotu many of the integral spec features for this reason. its like buying an 802.11 chipset that doesnt work with anything else.

    the zigbee industry desperately needs to get together and release free software for a number of different micro-architectures.

    myren

    • Re:price sensitive (Score:3, Informative)

      by ucdoughboy ( 757337 )
      Open Source Network stack built on zigbee radios already exits. Check out the tinyOs effort. Compare to Blue tooth, zig bee radios are much more power efficient.
    • Yep. That's right. $10000 to join the alliance to get access to the spec. That's going to encourage a lot of little companies to support those little 8-bit micros that go into all the toys, white goods and other products that will make it universal. Pah.
    • That's what we're doing. Ignore Zigbee and stay within 802.15.4. Sooner or later they'll notice that nobody is using Zigbee and they'll open up their spec.
      -russ
    • For the Zigbee chip companies that have zigbee stacks on the market now, if you want to use their stack in an end product, you pay a license fee per device, about $0.50 or so. Of course once the spec is publicly available for download (1Q05) then you could just write the dang thing yourself. For those of us that need to get to market soon, it's much easier just to license it for now.

      Anyone interested in a Zigbee Stack project on SourceForge?
      • the spec is becoming available freely? where'd you hear this, and where can i hear it?

        i'm still a bit skeptical. its my assumption that 802.15.4 doesnt compass any of the mesh routing standards. even with the free spec, when you're talking about having to do your own routing, writing or using a stack is still going to be a huge barrier to entrance.

        more troublesome is my sneaking suspicion that many implementations will not play nicely together. zigbee is very non-trivial, i wouldnt be suprised to see
        • ZigBee's strategy has always been to make the standard open (meaning available for free download on the web for noncommercial use, academic study, etc.), while remaining proprietary (meaning that one must be a member of the ZigBee Alliance to use the spec in commercial products).

          You're right, IEEE 802.15.4 does not encompass any mesh routing. IEEE 802 standards cover only the PHY and MAC layers of the OSI stack, so networking is not included. However, 15.4 was designed to support such services, and their
          • The ZigBee specification describes a multihop routing protocol that has been tested in large networks on products made by multiple vendors. You won't have to write your own routing protocol.

            We're still going to have to implement it though, which is a bit silly since the spec's are all there.

            It just seems like yet another classic case of commercialism getting in the way of a good idea. That vendors wouldnt provide stacks freely is a sure way to cut sales in half. I guess in large part its because 802.15

  • I saw this at a TI conference recently... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by francisew ( 611090 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @05:08PM (#11086185) Homepage

    All I could think is that I'm allergic to bee stings.

    It's essentially a wireless networking scheme that layers on top of an independant physical platform, yet costs significant dough to get certified for. Very clever scheme. Too bad they haven't included really interesting things in their design. All it lays out is the full node/slave node/coordinator node network. It really should have things like dynamic reconfiguration of the network structure. I think it's around 7500$ to become a 'zigbee partner' and then another indeterminate amount to become zigbee compliant/certified. That doesn't even include the royalties for using the stack commercially. The underlying hardware interface however... is very interesting.

    I'm also not sure I want my home devices on an unauthenticated wireless network.

    A spread-frequency digital communications system is really useful (802.15.4 standard). It also doesn't have the associated royaly issues.

    • I'm also not sure I want my home devices on an unauthenticated wireless network.

      Zigbee uses AES for authentication and encryption.

    • Zigbee adds some really cool stuff, including mesh networking, dynamic mesh creation and maintenance, security, and a very cool application profile tool.

      Who says that you need to get certified? Maybe you do if you want to advertise your product as "zigbee compatible" or whatever, but if you don't care then there's no reason to test. We're using the zigbee stuff from Chipcon [chipcon.com] and we aren't a member of the Zigbee Alliance [zigbee.org]. Oh, BTW, it costs $9500 to become a member of the Alliance, not $7500.

  • UWB (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ultra Wide Band will make stuff like this somewhat secondary.
    • Whose UWB is going to hit that power target? The lowest power UWB I'm aware of is Freescale's XS110, but I don't think it'll compete for the power. I think what you'd be most likely to see is zigbee turning your DVD on and off, and UWB running the video to the screen, sound to the speakers, data feed from the network, etc. (Assuming the right UWB, of course.)

  • BT ? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PureCreditor ( 300490 )
    WPAN.....isn't this the job of Bluetooth ? Great, not only we have HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray, and PSP vs. DS, UMTS vs. WiMax, NOW we have to worry about Bluetooth versus ZigBee!!

    Thanks, but no thanks. I'll happily keep my BT appliances.
    • I really don't think they're in the same market niche. Bluetooth is aimed at replacing cables in computer and portable electronics areas, e.g. the keyboard cable, headphone cable, serial cable.

      ZigBee looks like it's aimed at being more of a control systems network: that implies much lower bandwidth, infrequent communications, and usually a fixed installation. Bluetooth hardware would probably be overkill for an application where ZigBee would be appropriate, much like how WiFi would be overkill as a key
  • I get too much interference between my shirt pockets from my slide rule tie clip! Can I get a reflector that I can add to the tape that holds my glasses together? And just where am I suppoded to put the WAN firewall?
  • MaxStream, Inc. http://www.maxstream.net/ [maxstream.net] is parterning with Freescale Semiconductor http://www.freescale.com/ [freescale.com] to make a ZigBee module. Having a module option will make it easier, quicker and cheaper to integrate ZigBee into electronic devices. Here is an article in EE Times about it: http://http//www.commsdesign.com/news/market_news/ showArticle.jhtml?articleID=55301590/ [http]
  • I've worked at two places where something like Zigbee would have helped. One is monitoring energy consumption, and the other, soda consumption. It wouldn't need that much bandwidth to get out power readings or vending machine sales, but, getting the network out into the field was a huge challenge. There's plenty of places where even POTS lines aren't run.
  • If these are cheap, people will be silly enough to use these in phones, home door controllers, light controllers, alarms, etc.

    Wonder what sort of market there will be for the corresponding "box"? And what color should it be? (yellow and black?)

    Annoying neighbors? Just hook up your handy-dandy Zigbee emulator to a web page, and invite all of your friends to diddle the neighbor's burglar alarm...

  • Motorola is pushing it big. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bill, Shooter of Bul ( 629286 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @08:12PM (#11088600) Journal
    My company met Moto reps, they tried pushing it for our new network, but its range is pitiful. Depending upon which spec you look at 15 - 30 meters. There are some testimonials I've heard about using them in industrial settings. One guy had a problem with his network every monday morning. Turned out every monday morning, a Semi pulled between his two buildings blocking the signal. The solution? Why add a couple dummy nodes on the roof to route trafic around the truck.
    • In our office we tested for range using two of the Chipcon [chipcon.com] boards. We measured about 40m range, through various walls and offices and whatnot. That was using el cheapo PCB trace antennas. If you put on chip antennas (like what most BT devices use) then you could probably get 50m+. Outdoors, either of these options can do 100m+, one guy said they got 400m between devices.

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