Enterprise
next for
Bluetooth
technology
Cover story
The many faces
of Industrial IoT
The Internet
of Finns
What next for
silicon vendors?
QUARTER 2 | summer 2018
Enterprise
next for
Bluetooth
technology
Cover story
The many faces
of Industrial IoT
The Internet
of Finns
What next for
silicon vendors?
QUARTER 2 | summer 2018
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2 | SUMMER 2018 | ULP WIRELESS QUARTER www.nordicsemi.com
T
he smart home is driving wireless technology down an interesting (and somewhat challenging)
path. Industry clusters such as the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), Thread Group, and
Zigbee Alliance are jostling to position their respective technologies as the best smart-home
solution. The prize is enticing; according to consultant McKinsey&Company, over the past several
years the smart-home sector in the U.S. has expanded at a compound annual growth rate of 31 percent.
Each organization’s RF protocol is mature with good vendor support and a proactive development
program. And all hold the potential to power the low-cost, battery-friendly wireless sensor networks that
will form the foundation of a smart home’s lighting, heating, and security systems. But each has specific
strengths (and weaknesses). Among Bluetooth Low Energy’s (Bluetooth LE) advantages are smartphone
interoperability; Thread boasts native IPv6 capability; and Zigbee is a proven, broadly-adopted mesh
networking technology.
It is perhaps little surprise that no single technology dominates. The capabilities of each betray the
protocol designers’ compromises between throughput, range, power consumption, and cost. For example,
Bluetooth LE technology’s smartphone interoperability derives from its consumer roots, while Zigbee
wireless’ mesh compatibility is a result of its design for industrial automation applications. That’s not to say
the protocols haven’t adapted to meet applications beyond the original specification; Bluetooth 5, for
example, extended Bluetooth LE technology’s throughput and range while Zigbee 3.0 enhanced the
protocol’s interoperability. But reshaping can only take a wireless technology so far. Ultimately a protocol’s
capabilities are limited by the laws of physics, and even the cleverest engineers can’t bend those.
So it seems that no clear wireless winner is emerging in the connected home. More likely several
technologies will be needed, working together with each playing to its strengths. If that’s to be the case,
collaboration between industry bodies will be important to ensure that devices using different protocols
can interoperate. Such collaboration has started in some areas; the Thread Group and Zigbee Alliance, for
example, have already cooperated on the development of a “common language” to aid communication
between products supporting their respective technologies. (See this issue pg16.)
Nordic Semiconductor, despite perhaps being best known as the leading Bluetooth LE chip supplier, has
always catered for multiple protocols, supported on a single hardware platform. Historically, the company
offered Bluetooth LE/ANT+/2.4 GHz Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) and now with its nRF52840 SoC, support for
those protocols is complemented by that for Thread and Zigbee. (See this issue pg8.) Better yet, the
nRF52840 SoC offers concurrent Bluetooth LE and Thread or Zigbee operation. That allows a developer to
use identical hardware across a range of multiprotocol smart-home products, safe in the knowledge that
information can wirelessly pass between them all.
Yours Sincerely,
Pär Håkansson
Product Marketing Manager
for Smart Home Products and Strategies
Smart home encourages
wireless evolution
Sebastien Mackaie-Blanchi is an
Engineering Manager with Nordic.
On page 21 he explains the critical
role of firmware in Bluetooth Low
Energy SoC operation
The Bluetooth
®
word mark and logos are
registered trademarks owned by the
Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks
by Nordic Semiconductor is under license.
© Nordic Semiconductor 2018
Enterprise wearables are
driving a divergence in
Bluetooth applications
OPINION
Pär Håkansson
ULP Wireless Q is published
on behalf of Nordic
Semiconductor by Ecritech
www.ecritech.com
Editor
Steven Keeping
e-mail: steven@ecritech.com
Assistant Editor
Chris Williams
e-mail: chris@ecritech.com
Production Editor
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e-mail: andrew@ecritech.com
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Print & Distribution
Printech Europe
Contributors
Svein-Egil Nielsen is CTO at Nordic
Semiconductor. On page 9 he looks
at the wireless technology options
for Industrial IoT implementations
in enterprise applications
Page 16Page 9
Graham Prophet is a freelance
electronics journalist. Here he
examines the creation of Dotdot,
a single language that handles
connectivity attributes of the IoT
Page 21