The technical parameters and radio frequency of the WIFI solution and Zigbee solution can be clearly seen in the above picture. Let me explain the difference between the two in detail below.
Zigbee is synonymous with the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol. The technology specified under this agreement is a short-range, low-power wireless communication technology. The name comes from the eight-character dance of bees, because bees rely on the "dance" of flying and zig-zagging wings to communicate the location of pollen to their companions. That is to say, bees rely on this method. constitutes the communication network in the group. It is characterized by short distance, low complexity, self-organization, low power consumption, low data rate, and low cost. It is mainly suitable for use in the fields of automatic control and remote control and can be embedded in various devices. In short, ZigBee is a cheap, low-power short-range wireless networking communication technology.
Wi-Fi is a technology that can connect terminals such as personal computers and handheld devices (such as PDAs and mobile phones) to each other wirelessly. Wi-Fi is a brand of wireless network communication technology owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance. The purpose is to improve the interoperability between wireless network products based on the IEEE 802.11 standard. Nowadays, most people confuse Wi-Fi and IEEE 802.11. Wi-Fi is even equated with wireless Internet. Wi-Fi and Zigbee, both of which mainly operate in the 2.4g frequency band, use dsss direct sequence spread spectrum, so if they exist, there is a conflict. In view of the current popularity of Wi-Fi, it will still be difficult to popularize Zigbee in the future. degree. However, if the trend is like this, I believe WiFi will abandon 2.4g and switch to 5g or other frequency bands to avoid zigbee.
Let’s talk about the difference: zigbee can be understood as the most basic microcontroller + advanced wireless communication protocol. The wireless communication protocol is 802.15.4. It has the advantage of self-organizing networks. The maximum number of network nodes can reach 65,000, which is very conducive to environmental survey and other work. For example, an airplane flies over a forest and drops tens of thousands of nodes from the sky, and then you can return to the computer to observe the data. . Zigbee was proposed for sensors with low data volume, so Zigbee has many possible applications in industry; in smart homes, some people have also proposed many possible applications, such as smart XX, which uses zigbee wireless for several electrical appliances. The network is connected to allow electrical appliances to have the ability to sense the environment and take appropriate measures in different situations. Zigbee is currently also the mainstream wireless smart home technology solution in China. Domestic Xiaomi, Haier, and Oribo are all using Zigbee solutions.
WiFi was proposed for wireless access networks. This alliance has now become a household name, and many electronic devices in daily life are marked with the word WiFi. WiFi is an alliance of high-speed, high-stability wireless access network solutions. The wireless communication protocol is 802.11b/g/n. The main problem it solves is wireless access. Unlike Zigbee, its requirements are high speed and large capacity; WiFi does not have self-organizing network capabilities and needs to be set manually.
To put it simply, the application methods of the two are different. Generally, zigbee is used for self-organizing networks and automatic control. WiFi is used in human-controlled wireless access networks.