Just How Many Radios Do You Need, Anyway?
From NetworkWorld, interesting discussion about ZigBee:
I recently attended an IEEE Communications Society event that focused on ZigBee, a very interesting set of radios and protocols mostly designed for telemetry and control applications. And during the entire presentation, my mind wandered back to a fundamental question – how many radios do we really need in a handset? ZigBee isn’t yet big in the home, but imagine a residential-automation system using ZigBee, handling security, energy management (“smart grid” is a key focus for the ZigBee community), home entertainment, personal communications, etc. etc. Gosh, given such, wouldn’t it be great to have a ZigBee radio in a handset? Will such come to pass?
I doubt it. In fact, let me throw this out: in the not-too-distant future, the only radios in most handsets will be 802.11n Wi-Fi (dual-band) and LTE. That’s it, and that’s really all that’s required.
More info here.
I agree. Wi-Fi is ubiquitous. We are finding that no one wants to maintain more than one wireless network for sensor monitoring.
With Low Power WiFi around the corner it could become true, however Bluetooth is another contestant with Low Power Bluetooth. Now it is used in health and sports applications, available in all phones and cheaper than WiFi.
ZigBee needs successful applications, the most successful application of ZigBee is 802.15.4 (!) and the implementation of IPv6LoPAN is the easiest way to comply to the rest of the world!