The difference between ZigBee and WiFi

ZigBee is a low-power mesh network protocol based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It is formulated by the international ZigBee alliance and applied to short-range communication. Its main feature is the low-speed and low-power Internet of things. It supports IPv6 protocol. Its wireless communication rate is 250K. It works in the 2.4G frequency band, ranging from 2405mhz to 2480mhz. The interval of channels is 5MHz. There are 16 channels in total, belonging to the global free frequency band.

ZigBee network can be used in smart home, sensor network, smart agriculture, remote electricity meter and so on. ZigBee is divided into three parts:

Coordinator

Each ZigBee network has only one coordinator. The ZigBee coordinator is used to create and manage ZigBee networks. It is a protocol based on low-power Internet of things. The maximum capacity of each ZigBee network is 65535.

Router

The function of the ZigBee router node is to forward the information of the endevice node or as the equipment control end to control the equipment without power failure, such as switches, lamps and so on.

Endevice

Endevice node can only be used as a terminal, which is characterized by its very low power consumption and standby current as low as UA. It can be powered by power supply or battery. It is used in switches, smoke alarms and other equipment.

ZigBee network is flexible and has self-healing function. If a router node fails, ZigBee will remove the failed node from ZigBee network and find a substitute router node.

ZigBee mesh network is as follows:

WiFi is a wireless LAN communication protocol based on TCP / IP. WiFi network is in the form of star network, which is mainly characterized by high-speed transmission. The transmission rate of TCP / IP is very high and the delay is very short. The rate of common WiFi routing is 54Mbps. WiFi network can transmit real-time video, instant communication, large capacity files, etc. With the popularity of optical fiber, the delay of WiFi network is lower.

Application of ZigBee network and WiFi

For example, a family in Hubei has a smart home network composed of ZigBee module, which is connected to the edge router of TCP / IP network through the ZigBee gateway of coordinator. You can connect WiFi with mobile phone in Shenzhen, check the status of each node of ZigBee network, and control a node with mobile app.