Previously, taller transmitters were utilized to cover an entire city or a large area. The taller transmitters were frequently located in the city's center. However, the capacity of those networks was insufficient. It may be able to connect to a small number of devices. IEEE later developed the WLAN IEEE 802.11 project to provide high-speed internet connections to offices, households, and other places. Because high frequencies, such as 2.4 GHz and 5.7 GHz, are used, WLAN is ideal for short-range communication. Higher frequencies used in the IEEE 802.11 series can only traverse a few meters, i.e. 30-100 meters. As a result, they are excellent for short-range or indoor communication. The IEEE 802.11 series continues to evolve. The IEEE body later produced 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, etc.
Bluetooth was developed as a result for short-range file transfer between devices. The 2.4 GHz unlicensed spectrum is used by both Bluetooth and Zigbee. Bluetooth has a range of 10 meters and a data rate of 1 Mbps. The range of Zigbee, on the other hand, is roughly 30 metres, with a data rate of 250 Kbps.
Zigbee utilizes a fraction of the power that Bluetooth does. It operates at a power level of 4-20 mW. (milliwatt). Mesh, star, and tree networking are all possible with Zigbee. This characteristic makes it suitable for sensor networks, IoT connections, and other applications. Because zigbee uses substantially less power, the battery used in Zigbee can last for several years, and we won't have to replace these Zigbee (nodes) for a long time.
The connection and MAC layer protocols of Zigbee are compliant with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It's utilized for low-power communication as well as network security.
As a result of the aforementioned, we may conclude that
- Zigbee can be utilized in an ad-hoc network, mesh network, star network, or tree network, which makes it ideal for connecting a variety of useful networks such as sensor networks, IoT networks, and so on.
- It may be used for signaling and security purposes for years because it only requires 5 to 20 milliwatts of energy and can be powered by the same battery. We do not need to remove Zigbee nodes on a regular basis.
- The range of Zigbee is around 30 metres, and the data rate is approximately 250 Kbps. As a result, it is an excellent candidate for protecting transmission lines, as we do not require a high data rate for signalling.
