TOPIC : BLUETOOTH VS ZIGBEE HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT PROTOCOL?

TOPIC : BLUETOOTH VS ZIGBEE HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT PROTOCOL?.

BLUETOOTH. Bluetooth has IEEE std. specification 802.15.1. It is low-power, short-range and has low-rate. It is referred as wireless personal area network WPAN. 802.15.1 can provide data rates up to 4 Mbps. 802.15.1 networks operate in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed radio band in a TDM manner, with time slots of 625 microseconds..

ZIGBEE. Zigbee has IEEE std. specification 802.15.4. It is used for lower-powered, lower-data –rate, lower-duty-cycle applications such as home temperature and light sensors, security devices and wall-mounted switches. Zigbee nodes have two types : reduced-function devices which act as slaves and full-function devices which control these slave devices..

COMPARISON CHART. Zigbee Bluetooth Network Type Local Area Network (LAN) Personal Area Network (PAN) Range 291 meters 77 meters Frequency Around 2.4GHz 2.4GHz to 2.483 GHz Operating System Not currently compatible Android, iOS , Windows, and OS X Throughput 250 kbps 270 kbps Cell Nodes Has almost 65000 cell nodes Maximum 8 cell nodes RF Channels Has only 16 RF Channels Has 79 RF Channels Topology Mesh only Mesh and Star Modulation Uses GFSK, BPSK, and QPSK modulation techniques Uses GFSK modulation technique Transmit Power 100mW 10mW.

BLUETOOTH PROTOCOL. ADVANTAGES. DISADVANTAGES. It requires constant data transmission at higher rates in a short-range. Bluetooth is so well-optimized that the power consumption is quite low, as good as other network protocols like Zigbee . Apart from that, Bluetooth supports all the popular operating systems and platforms such as Android, OS X, Windows, iOS , etc..

ZIGBEE PROTOCOL. ADVANTAGES. DISADVANTAGES. It operates on 2.4GHz frequency globally, which can be implemented without needing any license. If implemented correctly, it can cover a much larger area than any particular radio. All credit goes to the mesh networking that it uses primarily. It’s smart enough to repair or reconfigure the network itself if any node is added or removed from the network at any point in time..

CONCLUSION. Both the networking protocols, Zigbee and Bluetooth, are quite useful, but in their own ways. None of them is actually better than the other one in all aspects. Actually, it depends on your project needs since Zigbee is ideal for long-range data transmission, and Bluetooth is quite the opposite of it. Both the technologies have their own advantages and limitations as well. However, if you utilize the best of both, and use their strength combined, these two technologies can come in handy in many ways..