ZigBee Standard » Simply explained
Updated: 20.05.2022 | Reading time: 8 minutes
This text is machine translated.
ZigBee is a communication protocol widely used in home automation.
It networks LED lamps and many other products in the smart home across all manufacturers. In our guide, you can find out what advantages the ZigBee standard offers.
Dim the light, change the color or call up lighting scenes at the touch of a button: This and more is one of the benefits of wireless lighting systems for the smart home. Many wireless networked lighting solutions such as Philips Hue or Osram Smart+ from Ledvance are based on the popular ZigBee standard.
ZigBee is a versatile, energy-efficient home networking wireless protocol designed for smart buildings, smart home solutions, embedded devices and the Internet of Things (IoT). It was developed to transmit small amounts of data and minimize energy consumption and is used by several major manufacturers. Like the competing wireless protocols Z-Wave, EnOcean and Bluetooth Smart (Bluetooth Low Energy), ZigBee is very well suited for building customized home automation systems, sensor networks and medical applications. Thanks to its ease of installation, ZigBee is the right wireless standard for users who only want to spend a little time with the technology.
The ZigBee protocol was developed by the ZigBee Alliance as the leading organization. The best-known manufacturers that support ZigBee include Philips, General Electric, Innr/Ledvance (Osram/Lightify), Huawei, Somfy, Amazon, Ikea, Honeywell, Busch-Jaeger, Jung, Gira, Bosch, Samsung, Kärcher, Siemens, Telekom, Velux and ZTE.
The ZigBee standard is used by smart lighting solutions such as Philips Hue.
Smart Home Guide
The range of smart home systems is huge: there are many different home automation systems to choose from.
In our smart home guide, you will find useful and interesting information on all areas of application relating to smart living. We explain what you need to look out for when choosing a smart home system and what possibilities and benefits a smart home offers.
ZigBee devices, in this example lamps, also communicate wirelessly with each other.
ZigBee has a wide range of possible applications. With the help of the standard, intelligent home automation systems can switch devices on and off and control them, dim lights, automate motorized shutters and blinds and implement many convenience applications. ZigBee is also used for sensor measurements, control systems and in the medical sector.
ZigBee devices communicate wirelessly with each other. This makes it easy to equip your own four walls with a ZigBee system. Because no wiring is required, the system is equally suitable for new buildings and as a retrofit solution for apartments and houses. It is quick and easy to install without any chiselling or slotting. If you move house, you can simply take your ZigBee components with you - making devices that operate according to the ZigBee standard also recommended for tenants.
Due to its energy-saving operation and small data packets, the ZigBee standard is very suitable for transmitting sensor data for battery-operated or battery-operated sensors such as motion detectors or smoke detectors and for battery-operated wireless control elements such as hand-held transmitters. Due to the low energy consumption, a battery lasts a long time. Some sensors or signal transmitters work for years without the battery having to be replaced.
The ZigBee protocol regulates how devices in the networked home communicate with each other and transmit signals. The standard connects networked products over short distances. The radio signal is transmitted in the license-free ISM bands at 868 MHz, 915 MHz and 2.4 GHz.
As with WLAN/WiFi and Bluetooth, the radio range is between 10 and 20 meters, depending on the transmission power and the structural environment - theoretically up to 100 meters is possible under ideal conditions. The maximum achievable data transmission rate is 250 kilobits per second (kbit/s). This is significantly lower than the 802.11 WLAN standards for the transmission of multimedia data at high data rates, but is fully sufficient for control tasks in the smart home and for transmitting status messages. You can use ZigBee for all types of living spaces, houses and commercial premises. There is usually no interference with other electronic devices. Computers, WLANs, alarm systems and cordless telephones are generally not disturbed.
Interesting ZigBee components
ZigBee devices can connect and communicate with each other in a star structure, a tree scheme and via peer-to-peer topology (meshed network scheme, mesh). Mesh transmission ensures high reliability and efficiency, as each ZigBee device is both a receiver and a transmitter and therefore acts as a repeater for neighboring devices. The components are not only in contact with the one central point, but also with each other. This means that each lamp extends the range - sometimes even beyond the boundaries of the WLAN, for example to adjacent floors, distant rooms, the terrace or the garden. Even spacious apartments and houses can be fully controlled thanks to the mesh function if you install at least one ZigBee product in every room.
The mesh function also prevents dead spots and ensures a high level of reliability: if the signal path is interrupted by a switched-off or failed device, an alternative route via the other devices is simply used to bring the data signal to its destination.
As the devices communicate with each other, each additional device simultaneously extends the radio range of the ZigBee network.
Devices that operate according to the ZigBee standard use a radio control center (bridge, gateway) as a base station, communication center and smart home center. The gateway is connected to a free socket and connected to the router via a network cable or Wi-Fi. You can then set up, configure and operate the system as a controller on your smartphone, tablet or PC using an app. Additional devices and accessories can be added at any time via the app. The app shows the status of the connected devices and lamps and offers automation options. You can record lighting scenes or recurring sequences in scenes and activate them at the touch of a finger. Time-controlled lighting control or activation when a sensor is triggered is also possible.
Remote control from outside the local network is common. This means that ZigBee products can also be operated while on the move, for example to switch the light on and off.
ZigBee is an open smart home standard and is based on the wireless data specification IEEE 802.15.4. The ZigBee protocol stack consists of several layers. The basis is the physical layer (bit transmission layer) with the basic functions for sending and receiving. Above this are the medium access control layer (MAC, media access layer for setting up logical channels), the network layer (NWK, network layer) and the application layer (APL, application layer). The application layer is customizable. This allows manufacturers to implement their own additions to ZigBee. As a result, there is not THE ONE ZigBee standard, but a multitude of profiles.
The profiles contain specific specifications for certain applications. The most popular are the lighting control profile ZigBee Light Link and ZigBee Home Automation for controlling smart devices in small buildings. Other profiles include ZigBee Building Automation, ZigBee Health Care and ZigBee Retail Services.
The variety of specific profiles puts compatibility into perspective. ZigBee products that use the ZigBee Light Link profile cannot communicate directly with products based on ZigBee Home Automation. This is also the reason why, for example, many but not all LED lamps from different manufacturers that comply with the ZigBee standard can be registered with a Philips Hue Bridge (the radio control center of the smart Hue lighting system from Philips).
With a Hue Bridge, you can connect OSRAM Lightify lamps based on ZigBee and Trådfri bulbs from IKEA, for example. A Hue system, in turn, is compatible with many smart home systems, including Qivicon (Magenta SmartHome and Vattenfall Smart Home, sometimes a ZigBee wireless stick is required), eQ-3 HomeMatic IP, Bosch Smart Home, Devolo HomeControl, smart thermostats from Nest, Homee and Samsung SmartThings.
The individual adjustments in the application layer and the differences in the profiles do not always make it easy for users to combine ZigBee products from different manufacturers. This works in individual cases or quite conveniently via small detours such as the Alexa voice control in Amazon Echo Plus as a smart home center with ZigBee support. Apple HomeKit and Google Assistant (Google Home) can also be used to connect ZigBee devices such as the intelligent Hue lights from Philips with devices from other brands.
With the introduction of ZigBee 3.0, you as a user will benefit from a uniform standard for all devices in networked buildings. The ZigBee Alliance has combined many different profiles under one roof in ZigBee 3.0 for cross-manufacturer interoperability. Specifically, these are Light Link, Home Automation, Building Automation, Retail Services, Health Care, Telecommunications Services and Green Power.
This standardization means that you as a user no longer need to pay attention to the profiles when purchasing new devices for your home automation system: Sensors and actuators that are certified according to ZigBee 3.0 understand each other. This means that LED lights from one manufacturer can be registered with the radio control center of another provider and vice versa. This works, for example, with the rectangular Hue Bridge, which supports ZigBee 3.0. ZigBee 3.0 therefore allows a mix of different brands and expands the selection options. Only specific extra functions that some manufacturers integrate into their products beyond the scope of ZigBee 3.0 will continue to be available exclusively with the relevant brands.
Big plus point: ZigBee 3.0 is downwards compatible. You can therefore register additional devices with the previous profiles on a wireless control unit with ZigBee 3.0. On the rectangular Hue Bridge, these are LED lights with the ZigBee Light Link profile.
In a nutshell, ZigBee 3.0 makes wireless home networking future-proof, more convenient, simpler and more versatile.
Data transmission between the app as a controller on the smartphone or tablet, the gateway (bridge) and the smart ZigBee devices such as lamps is encrypted. The encryption uses the 128-bit AES-CCM algorithm in accordance with the ZigBee specification and is therefore tap-proof. In the past, security researchers have reported security impairments under laboratory conditions due to restrictions in the ZigBee implementation. Many manufacturers have responded with software updates for their products to reduce the effects. If ZigBee is mainly used for lighting control within the building, the risks are limited.