Zigbee Smart Lighting System
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About zigbee
Zigbee network
Stack
PHY
frame
MAC
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Conformance
AODV protocol
Products
As we know advancement in wireless standards and LEDs are pioneered for the success of smart lighting system. It is the interesting way to automate our home, office and/or factory. The smart lighting provides greater control as well as flexibility with more features compare to traditional lighting approach. Taking into consideration few security concerns smart lighting will be a boom in the future of lighting industry.
Normally bulbs are used just to turn them either ON or OFF. With smart lighting system, LED bulbs are expored for instant dimming, control the brightness and also control the colours using application running in the smart phone. Now-a-days android or iOS phones are available at cheaper costs and it is easy to install smart lighting applications.
As mentioned manufacturers of smart lighting systems are using Bluetooth Low Energy, WiFi and/or Zigbee as wireless interface standard to communicate with the smart bulbs to have control and monitoring. Out of these standards zigbee has become more popular for smart lighting system because bluetooth and wifi do not allow creation of mesh networks. With Zigbee multiple devices are easily controlled from a single point over the entire office or home building.
Following four basic elements such as LEDs, application software, sensors and wireless communication interface will make complete smart lighting system.
LEDs are inherently controllable and are important for the growth of the smart lighting system. LEDs will consume less energy, will have long life and will deliver high quality light. They are manufactured using semiconductor material widely adopted by the lighting industry.
Application Software will provide easy control to switch light on and off and vary the brightness levels as needed automatically. This helps save the power to a great extent as lights are used when needed and brightness is also controlled.
The smart lighting system employ sensors for providing efficient lighting system. These system consider both occupancy and other environment parameters and will deliver light accordingly.
Wireless interface standards makes it possible to control and manage smart lighting devices wirelessly at comfort. It does not require much intelligence , money and effort to install the components of the smart lighting system. Following are the merits or advantages of such system.
Advantages of Smart Lighting System
• Massive energy reduction, hence smart lighting system can cut down about 90% of power cost.
• More light when required using light level control.
• Will have long life and need less maintance.
• Will provide greater control over human resources and will provide great work environment.
• It helps conrporations sustain.
Zigbee Smart LED Bulb basics and manufacturers
The smart bulbs are based on various wireless standards such as bluetooth, zigbee and wifi. Due to popularity of Zigbee in the smart lighting systems efforts have been put to standardize Zigbee light link standard as prime. smart LED bulb will composed of processor, memory, real time clock and wireless chip. Heat sink is also need to provide cooling for processor and RF chip.
Following are the benefits of smart LED bulb:
• They will be fitted into regular bulb sockets.
• They typically will have life of around 25000 hours.
• Will have energy consumption of about 9 to 12 watts.
• Will provide light output in the order of 800+ lumens.
• Easy to install the application software in the mobile phone or tablet. Software will automatically detect the available smart
bulbs and smart hub.
• One can control and schedule the lighting of the smart bulbs with easy to use applications.
• Easy to add the number of bulbs as application software supports upto 50 bulbs.
• Price vary manufacturer to manufacturer. The cheapest smart bulb available based on zigbee standard is from
GE known as GE Link. The entire zigbee smart LED bulb kit costs just about $50. The kit contains two bulbs and 1 hub.
Single zigbee smart LED bulb costs about only $15.
The table below summaries smart bulb manufacturers. Zigbee smart LED bulb will need hub to connect with the existing wifi network.
| Manufac- turer model |
standard | Smart lighting Hub |
Life of Bulb |
Energy consumption |
Light Output |
Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Philips Hue | Zigbee | Hub is needed | 10 years | 9 Watt | 750 lumens | 3 bulbs+1 Hub costs $180 to $200, 1 bulb costs $30 |
| LIFX | supports WiFI and not Zigbee |
Hub is not needed |
25 years | 18 Watt | 1017 lumens | 1 bulb costs $99 |
| iLumi | supports bluetooth classic and bluetooth Low Energy(BLE) |
Hub is not needed | 20 years | 13 Watt for small bulb and 17 watt for large | 800+ lumens for small, 1100+ for large | 1 bulb costs $90 for small, $100 for large |
| GE Link | Supports Zigbee | Hub is needed | 23 years | 12 Watt | 800 lumens | 2 bulbs+1 Hub costs $50, 1 bulb costs $15 |
| WeMO smart LED bulb | Supports Zigbee | Hub is needed | 23 years | 10 Watt | 800+ lumens | 2 bulbs+ 1 Hub costs $100, 1 bulb costs $30 |
Various other companies are working to develop and produce the smart bulb devices meant for home automation. The companies include infineon, connect4, Dropcam, TCP, Quirky, Honeywell etc.
Zigbee Related Links
• what is zigbee
• Zigbee network architecture basics
• Zigbee Protocol Stack
• Zigbee Physical layers
• Zigbee physical layer frame
• Zigbee MAC layer frames
• Zigbee frequency bands
• Zigbee Gadgets
• Zigbee Products