The hottest ZigBee prospect is still waiting for t

ZigBee's prospects are still to be expected, and the market needs to wait for the opportunity to take off

ZigBee's low-power wireless transmission technology, which has emerged since 2005, once attracted widespread attention in the market at that time. However, over the past few years, this market has not grown as fast as originally expected. Although limited by many factors such as the formulation of standards, price and immature technology, ZigBee technology has its own uniqueness and application fields, which can still be expected. In Taiwan, although there is a lack of leading investment from well-known manufacturers, many operators are still quietly working to develop various ZigBee applications, hoping to wait for the opportunity to prepare for this market that has not yet taken off

ZigBee is a low-power wireless transmission technology, which is characterized by strong network scalability and can form a huge intelligent network through connection. Since it was officially incorporated into IEEE80 in 2005 and also provided various equipment information 2.15.4 standard specifications, Freescale, Ti, s tower crane performance test gb/t5031 (9) 4T, NEC, ember, jennic, Oki, Renesas and other manufacturers have launched relevant chip products since 2006, while domestic UBEC has also invested in ZigBee's chip development

zigbee's most attractive feature is its low-power, low-cost and meshnetwork topology. A host can correspond to more than 64000 terminal devices at the same time. Due to the clear market positioning of ZigBee, it mainly focuses on the fields of building automation, industry, medical treatment and home automation. It can use such wireless sensing network (WSN) to detect the environment such as temperature, humidity and light, so as to expand a variety of applications in daily life. Therefore, at the beginning when ZigBee standard just appeared on the table, it really attracted the attention of many markets. Many market research companies are also strongly optimistic about the development prospects of this technology

for example, at the end of 2005, the market research company NSR issued a report that the first batch of products with ZigBee functions will be launched in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region in the first quarter of 2006. The agency also estimated that 580million ZigBee components will be deployed worldwide by 2010, with a very rapid growth. Similarly, in stat, a market research organization, also pointed out in 2005 that "ZigBee will grow by more than 200% in five years."

however, from the upsurge a few years ago, the development of ZigBee seems to be worse than originally expected. At the beginning of this year, it was also in stat, but it released a report "the development prospect of ZigBee is unpredictable". The report points out that although the overall shipment of ZigBee nodes and chips will grow from 5million in 2006 to 120million in 2011, and it has recently received new attention in the field of automatic electricity meters, due to many competitive technologies, it is unlikely to be popularized in the home appliance market, and the prospect is uncertain

despite several ups and downs, some domestic operators are still developing ZigBee related applications, testing the market's acceptance and response to this technology first, and waiting for the arrival of market opportunities

Shihe digital technology company, which has invested in ZigBee Application Development for more than two years, said Chen Zhisheng, the chief technology officer of the company, that the investment in ZigBee was mainly because it met the needs of its parent company, Shizheng development company, for intelligent buildings, "We believe that the demand for management automation, security, energy conservation and other aspects of office and family housing will continue to grow in the future. And ZigBee's wireless sensing network and low power consumption characteristics will have great business opportunities in the application of positioning and temperature/humidity sensing."

at present, Shihe has built a ZigBee positioning and access control management system in a community of more than 1000 flats in Neihu. At the same time, it will also build an environmental quality sensing system including carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, temperature and humidity in the third phase of Nangang software park. It will use ZigBee sensing points to detect environmental data and its data transmission characteristics of about 200K, hoping to achieve the goal of automatically adjusting environmental quality. In addition, it also develops intelligent care products with relevant industries

and Shengsu technology, which only started the development of ZigBee module and system software last year, said Zhao Zhengyi, the company's project manager, "ZigBee's applications are very diverse. Often after we explain the characteristics of this technology, many customers can propose different application methods. The market's interest in this technology is indeed increasing."

of course, he also mentioned that there was a well-known wireless communication industry in Taiwan before, but it was finally abandoned. There are still some difficulties to overcome in this market due to many factors, such as the lack of interoperability of standards, insufficient volume, and the need to improve the stability, reliability and power consumption efficiency during actual deployment

Zhao Zhengyi believes that the main core technology for developing ZigBee applications is software. As for the price factor, he thinks that the current price of about NT $1000 for a sensing point should already be an acceptable range for some specific early applications

at present, Shengsu has constructed ZigBee Application Deployment test for computer room security control in a government machine. Zhao Zhengyi said that at present, customers are interested in industrial automation, hospital asset management, automatic super meter, electrical remote control, etc. and are in contact

in recent years, zice huiluo Multimedia Research Institute, which has actively promoted ZigBee applications in China, said hongzhihong, head of its environmental perception and control technology center, that although the entire industry has not yet risen, many companies in China are still developing related products and applications. He said, "although most of the manufacturers invested at present are small and medium-sized enterprises, there are still some well-known household appliances and communication are being carried out silently. Perhaps there will be more public actions until shixinda is more mature in addition to the research and production of biological materials."

nevertheless, after 3-4 years of promotion, Hong Zhihong said that many manufacturers have transferred technology to zigbeestack developed by the capital policy committee for product development, and there have been actual product launches in all aspects, including community, family, medical care, etc

for example, Ruisheng technology has launched ZigBee shutter in an attempt to expand the business opportunities of 'intelligent living space'. In addition, Taibo technology has also developed sphygmomanometers and blood glucose meters with built-in ZigBee sensors, hoping to apply Zigbee to medical care applications

in view of the slow progress of ZigBee market, he believes that "in addition to price factors, the high threshold of software development and the lack of independent stack technology by operators are the reasons that affect the actual deployment of ZigBee."

Hong Zhihong explained that although the current quotation of ZigBee chips is about US $4, due to the low quantity, ZigBee modules that really reach the application end usually offer NT $1000, which is difficult for the market to accept unless it is a specific application

however, just like the problem of chicken laying eggs, the market does not rise, and the module price naturally cannot fall. He pointed out that in terms of hardware technology, chips on the market are ready, and the biggest problem lies in the development of software stack. "Of course, some semiconductor manufacturers will provide stacks, but they are not very complete. They still have to modify and test them according to the application needs. The threshold of this part is the biggest bottleneck for Taiwan to import ZigBee applications."

"on the other hand, ZigBee focuses on applications like building/industrial automation, which requires more professional system integration (SI) manufacturers to be able to import this technology into relevant applications. However, we now have chip solutions and module manufacturers, but no Si industry can connect this industrial chain, develop better applications, and bring ZigBee products to clients, which are lacking in the current market." (Gou Shuwan)