Comments on: Wi-Fi Alliance: 7 Reasons Wi-Fi Will Succeed in the Smart Grid http://gigaom.com/cleantech/wi-fi-alliance-7-reasons-wi-fi-will-succeed-in-the-smart-grid/ Sun, 27 May 2012 15:36:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: 10 Things Outta the Smart Grid World of DistribuTECH – Earth2Tech http://gigaom.com/cleantech/wi-fi-alliance-7-reasons-wi-fi-will-succeed-in-the-smart-grid/#comment-28586 Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:09:19 +0000 http://earth2tech.com/?p=45983#comment-28586 [...] many of the smart meters now being deployed in North America. But there’s a growing number of home energy devices looking to good old Wi-Fi to get the networking job done, and smart meter maker Aclara joined that group this [...]

]]> By: Connected Gadgets Need a Business Model That Works – GigaOM http://gigaom.com/cleantech/wi-fi-alliance-7-reasons-wi-fi-will-succeed-in-the-smart-grid/#comment-28585 Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:54:11 +0000 http://earth2tech.com/?p=45983#comment-28585 [...] appliances never leave the home, so Wi-Fi in a refrigerator or washing machine that talks to the WiFi-enabled box connected to the smart grid to monitor energy usage is a pretty safe bet for consumer appliance vendors to make. Why shell out [...]

]]> By: Jim http://gigaom.com/cleantech/wi-fi-alliance-7-reasons-wi-fi-will-succeed-in-the-smart-grid/#comment-28584 Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:58:38 +0000 http://earth2tech.com/?p=45983#comment-28584 This is all well and good but what happens when the next best thing comes down the line and the wifi companies move to that technology and ditch the current one? Smart grid users of the system are left holding the bag. Using wifi for a backhaul system would be acceptable but for the main infrastructure would not be acceptable.

]]> By: Partha http://gigaom.com/cleantech/wi-fi-alliance-7-reasons-wi-fi-will-succeed-in-the-smart-grid/#comment-28583 Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:15:46 +0000 http://earth2tech.com/?p=45983#comment-28583 Hi

Below is a comparison of Wi-Fi and Zigbee on various metrics that should be useful:

1: Technology Penetration into Home Products – 2009 (USA)
Wi-Fi: >35% Zigbee: <1%

2: “Number of Certified Products (2009 October)
Source: Wi-Fi Forum Website and Zigbee Forum Website”
Wi-Fi: 6356 Zigbee: <30

3: Band (most used)
Wi-Fi: 2.4-2.5GHz Zigbee: 2.4-2.5GHz

4: Effective Bandwidth / Channel Spacing (most used)
Wi-Fi: 20MHz / 25MHz Zigbee: 3MHz / 5MHz

5: Tolerance of Interference:
Wi-Fi: Good. Wider-bandwidth Spreadspectrum Zigbee: Bad. Narrower-bandwidth Spreadspectrum

6: Tolerance of Multipath – RMS Delay spreads (Implementation dependent)
Wi-Fi: “150ns RMS @ 54Mbps, 500ns RMS @ 1Mbps” Zigbee: 500ns RMS @ 250kbps

7: MAC/PHY Security:
Wi-Fi: WPA/WPA2/CCX are Industry Tested Zigbee: MAC layer security Not available. Relies on Higher layer Security

8: Cost Of solutions:
Wi-Fi: Steadily reducing over years. Single-antenna, Zero-Host, Wi-Fi Chipsets are available today for ~$5 & self-contained modules for ~$10 (including TCP/IP)
Wi-Fi modules inside today’s mobile phones come for less than $4.5 (refer to teardowns e.g,. from isuppli for publicly available information.

Zigbee: Not known

9: Number of Vendors
Wi-Fi: Many Zigbee: Few

10: Data-rate (Max/Typ/Min)
Wi-Fi (b/g): 54Mbps / 36Mbps / 1Mbps
Zigbee: 250kbps alone (Ref: 802.15.4-2006 Section 6.5)

11: Receiver Sensitivity (at Max/Typ/Min data-rates) – Implementation dependent
Wi-Fi (54/36 and 1Mbps) -75dBm / -81dBm / -98dBm
Zigbee (250Kbps) -98dBm

12: Max Packet Length supported
Wi-Fi: 4KBytes (b/g), 64KBytes (n) Zigbee: 127 bytes

13: IP Layer can be directly ported over the MAC?
Wi-Fi: Yes Zigbee: Needs additional layer – 6LowPAN

14: Peak Rx Current @ 3.3V (min/max values for typical implementations in the market)
Wi-Fi: 100 – 200mA Zigbee: 60 – 100mA

15: Peak Tx Current @ 3.3V for 20dBm Tx Power (min/max values for typical implementations in the market)
Wi-Fi: 250 – 350mA Zigbee: 250 – 350mA

16: Shutdown current (min/max values for typical low-power implementations available today)
Wi-Fi: 1 – 5uA Zigbee: 1 – 5uA

17: Energy Efficiency of Reception @ highest datarate (using max values for current consumption)
Wi-Fi: 15nJ / bit Zigbee: 1320nJ/bit

18: Energy Efficiency of Reception @ lowest datarate (using max values for current consumption)
Wi-Fi: 825nJ / bit Zigbee: 1320nJ/bit

19: Does the PHY have error correction coding
Wi-Fi: Yes Zigbee: No

20: Certification for Peer to Peer Low-power operation available?
Wi-Fi: “Yes(Wi-Fi Direct)” Zigbee: Yes

Hope this is useful

Thanks
Partha

]]>