(From Celeste LeCompte‘s Blog)
Maybe you have notice in my previous blogs: Low-power wireless sensor networks have on major problem, when it comes to deployments: they need a sink! This problem is so big that it was a barrier for many sensor network applications to really come to a break through.
It was always assumed that only a low-power communication protocol can be used to solve the power problem. But then wifi came along (which actually was already there!) and solved the problem of the sink.
To my knowledge four really interesting companies currently compete against each other: ZeroG, Redpine, GainSpan, and G2 Microsystems. Check them out and you will see that their products are all quite similar.
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Hi,
This is often overlooked, but low-power WiFi is actually the biggest technical competition for 6LoWPAN and ZigBee as well.
I see a role for low-power WiFi where WiFi infrastructures do exist, and the end devices can really deal with being full Internet hosts. However it has downsides:
1. IEEE 802.11 is developing in a direction completely opposite from low-power. Higher data-rates, more processing power needed etc. Will 802.11b access points even be available soon?
2. WiFi access points acts as Ethernet bridges, therefore low-power WiFi devices are often forced to be full hosts with e.g. IPSec, TCP, HTTP, SOAP, XML you name it.
3. Often times WiFi range is insufficient, and 2.4GHz too congested for lots of IoT applications.
4. Probably other reasons as well?
The nice thing about 6LoWPAN is that we don’t need sinks, but instead really simple routers, like a “light” WiFi access point in a way. But 6LoWPAN protocols are designed for 8-bit uC based embedded low-power devices and low-power networks, and there is the possibility of using e.g. 433 or 868MHz links for better range and congestion avoidance. Plus we can use 6LoWPAN with new technologies like CSS or USB 802.15.4a for impressive positioning.
So my 2 cents is that there is a role and market for both low-power WiFi, and 6LoWPAN. They are still pretty complimentary in the end.
By: zdshelby on February 26, 2009
at 21:51