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You've made some interesting choices here. Lots of people here are questioning using a gateway, but I think this is a great choice for what you are doing, and r

by thechut 13y ago

You've made some interesting choices here. Lots of people here are questioning using a gateway, but I think this is a great choice for what you are doing, and required to get decent battery life. However, I think using ZigBee will end up pricing you our of most markets in the long run. Especially if you elected to go with the very pricing Xbee modules from Digi. These are developer friendly, but way to expensive. If you are serious about building this as a product, I would investigate alternative RF solutions, there a lot of good ones out there. Check out the 6lowpan standard, which is specifically designed for this kind of communication. Dust Networks (http://www.linear.com/products/smartmesh_ip http://www.linear.com/products/smartmesh_ip) has a good implementation. The other alternative would be to go with some of the proprietary RF standards, I know this sounds prohibitive at first but will end up saving you money on your BoM in the long run. Check out Atmel's LightWeight Mesh (http://www.atmel.com/tools/lightweight_mesh.aspx http://www.atmel.com/tools/lightweight_mesh.aspx) which is based on 802.15.4, the same as Zigbee and BT, so if you want you can even run ZigBee on the same hardware. Linx also makes a great proprietary RF module (https://www.linxtechnologies.com/en/home https://www.linxtechnologies.com/en/home) which is extremely cheap even at low quantities. If you are using Xbee (which it seems like you are) then you are likely not using a SoC, so designing in a different radio may still be relatively easy. PM me if you have any questions, I've been working on this IoT stuff for a while now. Congrats on the crowd funding campaign and best of luck.

johnm1019 13y ago
As an outsider to the space, your comment makes it sound like ZigBee is never a good option. Is this so? Is there a 'target market' for ZigBee?
- HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
  Industrial. You'll probably find that most price-sensitive consumer devices that don't need to interface to a standard protocol like WiFi will use very basic RF communication with a homebrew protocol. It makes the engineering cost much higher than using more complex devices, but spread over hundreds of thousands or millions of units, that cost vanishes. OTOH, industrial markets are a lot less price sensitive. Also, quantities sold will be much less, so the device's unit price has to be higher to make building it worthwhile.
  - thechut 13y ago
    Exactly, it is till good if ease of use and time to market is the major goal and price isnt a big question, which is certainly true in many markets. However, I think we will see it fall out of favor in consumer markets unless thye drastically reduce the license fees.

by thechut 13y ago

johnm1019 13y ago

As an outsider to the space, your comment makes it sound like ZigBee is never a good option. Is this so? Is there a 'target market' for ZigBee?

HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
Industrial. You'll probably find that most price-sensitive consumer devices that don't need to interface to a standard protocol like WiFi will use very basic RF communication with a homebrew protocol. It makes the engineering cost much higher than using more complex devices, but spread over hundreds of thousands or millions of units, that cost vanishes. OTOH, industrial markets are a lot less price sensitive. Also, quantities sold will be much less, so the device's unit price has to be higher to make building it worthwhile.
- thechut 13y ago
  Exactly, it is till good if ease of use and time to market is the major goal and price isnt a big question, which is certainly true in many markets. However, I think we will see it fall out of favor in consumer markets unless thye drastically reduce the license fees.