Wireless Protocols Benchmarking
This page describes some of the wireless protocols that I benchmarked for this project before I settled on Bluetooth 5 Low Energy.
Criteria
Our projects requires:
- Lowest possible energy consumption, since this will be powered by batteries.
- The highest possible range, since we hope to have only one Gateway in each facility.
List of Investigated Protocols
- At last, I rank the protocol in the following order:
- Bluetooth LE
- Bluetooth Mesh
- Zigbee Green Power
- I also looked at Zigbee Green Power with great interest, however I did not include it in my benchmarking. This is still possible within our evaluation setup since it can be used on our evaluation board at 2.4GHz. The major disadvantages were that it did not have a dedicated stack in SSv5, and I would need to purchase another device to make it work on the Raspberry Pi.
| Name | Number of items in network | Typical Range | Typical Data Rates | Typical Uses | Primary Benefits | Considerations | Can nodes transmit through other nodes? | Needs | More Info | Example module or Application |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zigbee | Theoretically thousands; good data found for 192. | Indoor 2.4Ghz: 10-20m | 250kb/ channel in 2.4Ghz, 40kb/channel in 914Mhz, 20kb/channel in 868 MHz | Home automation, wireless sensor networks, industrial control systems, embedded sensing, medical data collection, smoke and intruder warning, building automation, remote wirless microphone configuration | Choose Zigbee if you need:• An open standard-based protocol• Potential for interoperability with devices made by different vendors• Bi-directional communication with sleeping end devices | Not suitable for high mobility among nodes - ex. Battlefied. Noisy protocol. Zigbee networks can interfere with each other. | End devices cannot, need routers. | Zigbee coordinator, zigbee router, zigbee end device (parent device either router or coordinator) | https://www.digi.com/resources/library/white-papers/wp_zigbeevsdigimesh | https://www.buyapi.ca/product/xbee-pro-module-zb-series-2sc-63mw-with-wire-antenna-xbp24cz7wit-004/ |
| Bluetooth low-energy | Theoretically thousands; good data found for 192. | Up to 2 Mbps | Usually home network | Lots of support online for development kits, easy to find MCUs with integrated Bluetooth chips. Bluetooth LE has the lower power consumption (Microsoft paper). | Longest latency for scaled-up networks - works best for messages that are 11 bytes or less. | Yes* but low-energy nodes can't. Batteyr nodes shouldn't. | Proxy to connect to cloud, and repeaters if transmitting across distances that aren't battery | https://www.ti.com/wireless-connectivity/bluetooth/overview/bluetooth-5.html | i-Alert, Vibesense, ABB | |
| DigiMesh | Theoretically thousands; good data found for 192. | Theoretical Indoor: <60m, or <90m with Pro module (can extend with RF module) | 250kb, serial up to 1Mb (?) | Low-power versions of Zigbee applications. | The ability for all nodes to sleep (enabled with synchronized cyclic sleep)• Simplified network setup and expansion (no parent/child dependencies)• Support for longer range options (sub-GHz options available)• Support for broadcast-intense applications | Like Zigbee, but proprietary. Only sends/receives when it's told to. Can communicate with sleeping devices. | Yes! | Nothing! | https://www.digi.com/resources/library/white-papers/wp_zigbeevsdigimesh | NCD Devices with Xbee radios; https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/digi/XK3-Z8S-WZM/8130956?WT.z_cid=ref_neda_dkc_buynow_digiintl&utm_source=ecia&utm_medium=aggregator&utm_campaign=digiintl ; https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/digi/XB3-24Z8RM-J/7688708?WT.z_cid=ref_neda_dkc_buynow_digiintl&utm_source=ecia&utm_medium=aggregator&utm_campaign=digiintl |
| Thread | Theoretically 511 end devices/router, 32 routers/leader - in practice, optimized for 250 (can be extended) | Similar - <100m | 250kb/s | Industrial IoT, Home networking secondary | Same protocol as ZigBee, some level of interoperability because same technical standard | There are two versions - Thread (proprietary by Google) and Open Thread (also made by Google) | Yes - An router eligible end device can turn itself into a router | https://openthread.io/guides/thread-primer/node-roles-and-types | https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/nordic-semiconductor-asa/NRF52840-QIAA-R7/11200025 ; https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/adafruit-industries-c/4516/11684829 |
Other References
page revision: 10, last edited: 20 Apr 2021 12:49