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Zigbee

Zigbee from the Zigbee Alliance is an open 802.15 network standard for local area networks (LAN). It is a wireless, RF-based transmission that uses the unlicensed 2.4 Gigahertz spectrum. In North America, it runs on the 900-928 frequency range.  It uses multi-hop mesh networking which means that if one connected object fails, others can continue to communicate.

The Zigbee technology is a good fit for M2M/IoT applications inside buildings as it consumes little power which means that appliances such as light bulbs and home thermostats can run on a set of batteries for up to 7 years.  However, as it runs on 2.4 Gigahertz, it is only suitable for transmission over short distances, as opposed to low power wide area (LPWA) transmission technologies such as Sigfox and LoRAWAN. Zigbee objects are connected to the Internet via the premises’ broadband gateway.

As an open standard, the Zigbee standard allows interoperability between products of different manufacturers, hence supporting a bigger ecosystem of connected machines and appliances.

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