The following will summarize in detail the wireless networking technologies (BLE, RFID, NFC, 4/5G, NB-IoT, WiFi, LoRa, ZigBee) commonly used in the development of Internet of Things projects, and analyze their advantages and disadvantages and applicable scenarios.
Table of contents
Common networking technologies/protocols (BLE, RFID, NFC, 4/5G, NB-IoT, WiFi, LoRa, ZigBee) all belong to the physical layer and data link layer in the computer network OSI model.
near field communication
BLE（Bluetooth Low Energy）
BLE is a low-power Bluetooth technology, mainly used for short-range low-speed data transmission.
advantage:
- Low power consumption: BLE adopts low power consumption technology, which is suitable for long-term low power consumption application scenarios.
- Good stability: The BLE signal is stable and not easily disturbed.
- Extensive equipment: BLE equipment is extensive and supports many types of terminal equipment.
shortcoming:
- Low transmission rate: The transmission rate of BLE is low, the highest is only tens of kbps.
- Limited coverage: BLE coverage is limited, and the signal is easily affected by physical factors such as buildings.
- Limited data transmission distance: The data transmission distance of BLE is limited, it can only transmit data within a short distance, and the communication distance is 50 meters.
- No direct internet access.
BLE is mainly used in low-power, short-distance communication scenarios such as IoT devices, health monitoring, indoor navigation, mobile payment, and game controllers.
RFID（Radio Frequency Identification）
Radio frequency identification technology is a technology that automatically identifies targets and obtains relevant data through radio waves. The RFID system consists of a reader and a tag. The tag has a built-in microchip and antenna, and communicates with the reader through radio waves. RFID technology has the characteristics of non-contact, long distance, high speed and so on.
advantage:
- Items can be identified without contact, improving work efficiency.
- Realizing the tracking and supervision of items helps to improve the efficiency and accuracy of logistics management.
- The real-time information of the item is read, and the real-time monitoring of the item is realized.
- The communication distance is long, and the working distance can range from a few centimeters to tens of meters, depending on factors such as frequency, power and antenna size between the tag and the reader.
shortcoming:
- The price of the reader is higher, and the cost is higher for small and medium-sized enterprises.
- Tags have limited capacity and store less information.
- When the distance between the reader and the tag is too long or there is interference from objects, it may cause reading failure.
- No direct internet access.
RFID is mainly used in logistics management, warehouse management, manufacturing, financial payment and other fields.
NFC（Near Field Communication）
Near field communication technology is a short-distance high-frequency wireless communication technology, and the communication distance is usually within 10 cm. NFC technology can realize the communication between the mobile phone and the label, and also can realize the communication between the mobile phones.
advantage:
- Items can be identified without contact, improving work efficiency.
- It can realize the wireless communication between the mobile phone and the tag, and realize the convenient mobile payment.
- The communication distance is short, which ensures the safety of communication.
shortcoming:
- The communication distance is short (10cm), which limits its application scenarios.
- Tags have limited capacity and store less information.
- The data transmission speed is slow and cannot meet the needs of high-speed data transmission.
- No direct internet access.
RFID is mainly used in mobile payment, access control system, smart bracelet and other fields.
long-distance cellular communication
There is no need for a gateway, and the chip can be directly connected to China Mobile, China Unicom, and telecom operators.
4G LTE
4G LTE is the fourth-generation mobile communication network technology. It adopts OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) technology to achieve high-speed, high-reliability, and high-efficiency wireless communication.
advantage:
- High speed: It supports data transmission rates of up to 150Mbps downlink and up to 50Mbps uplink, dozens of times faster than previous generations of mobile communication technologies.
- High reliability: Using multiple technical means such as multi-antenna technology and adaptive modulation technology, the parallel transmission of multi-path channels can be realized, which can effectively improve the signal coverage and anti-interference ability.
- Strong flexibility: It supports high-speed mobile communication and is applicable to various communication scenarios and business requirements.
shortcoming:
- Higher delay: Due to the need to transmit data on multiple subcarriers, the signal needs to be demodulated complexly, resulting in high transmission delay.
- High energy consumption: High-speed transmission requires a lot of energy support, which has a certain impact on battery life and equipment cost in comparison.
Applicable scene:
- High-speed moving scenes, such as high-speed trains, cars, etc.
- Mobile broadband communications such as video streaming, online gaming, etc.
- Mobile Internet of Things (IoT) communication, such as smart home, smart transportation, shared bicycles, Fengchao, etc.
5G
5G is the fifth generation of mobile communication technology, using advanced technologies such as massive MIMO and beamforming .
advantage:
- High rate: Supports data transmission rates up to 20Gbps downlink and up to 10Gbps uplink, which is faster than 4G LTE.
- Low latency: It can achieve a latency of less than 1ms, and can support more real-time business applications, such as VR/AR.
- Multi-connection: It supports the connection of massive devices and can meet the interconnection needs of tens of billions of IoT devices in the 5G era.
- High energy efficiency: 5G uses more efficient coding and signal processing technology, which can save more energy than 4G LTE.
shortcoming:
- High deployment costs: Since the deployment of 5G networks requires high-density base stations, the construction costs are relatively high.
- High power consumption.
- Poor compatibility: The technical standards of 5G have not been fully unified, and there may be incompatibility between different operators and countries.
Applicable scene:
- Large-scale machine communication, such as autonomous driving, intelligent transportation, industrial Internet of Things, etc.
- Communication with low latency and high reliability, such as telemedicine, virtual reality, industrial automation, etc.
- Scenarios with high-speed movement and high-density equipment, such as high-speed trains, stadiums, etc.
NB-IoT （Narrowband Internet of Things）
NB-IoT is a narrow-band IoT communication technology based on cellular network. It is one of the low-power broadband wireless communication technologies for IoT defined by 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project). It can be directly deployed on GSM network (2G), UMTS network or LTE network (4G), 5G network. NB-IoT technology is to realize long-term, low-power, and low-cost device interconnection by adding a wireless Internet of Things network element to the existing mobile network . Usually based on the CoAP protocol of the application layer to connect to the server, of course, it can also be based on MQTT, but the power consumption will be high, so it is unnecessary.
advantage:
- Low power consumption: NB-IoT only needs to use lower power when transmitting data, so it can extend the battery life of the device.
- Wide coverage: NB-IoT uses narrowband communication technology, which has strong penetrating ability, and can be connected in weak signal areas such as basements and underground parking lots.
- Stable and reliable: NB-IoT has a wide network coverage, stable signal strength, is not easily disturbed, and has high communication quality.
- High security: NB-IoT adopts an end-to-end encryption mechanism to ensure the security of communication data.
- High connection density: NB-IoT can connect a large number of devices at the same time, supporting tens of thousands of devices per square kilometer.
- Good compatibility: NB-IoT is based on the existing 4G network, and the update of 4G infrastructure is very limited, so it has good compatibility.
- Multi-connection: It supports the connection of massive devices and can meet the interconnection needs of tens of billions of IoT devices in the 5G era.
- Can support long-distance communication: communication distance 10KM.
shortcoming:
- Slow transmission rate: The maximum transmission rate of NB-IoT is only 250Kbps, generally below 200kbps, which cannot meet the needs of high-speed data transmission.
- High latency: Due to the narrowband characteristics of NB-IoT technology, multiple handshakes and authentications are required for each data transmission, so there is a high latency.
- Need to buy a SIM card
NB-IoT is suitable for scenarios where IoT devices do not require high transmission rates and delays, and the amount of data is small, such as smart meters and smart parking.
long-range non-cellular communications
It cannot be directly connected to the Internet, and needs to be transferred through a gateway to connect to operators such as China Telecom.
WiFi
WiFi is a wireless local area network technology based on the IEEE 802.11 protocol, mainly used for short-distance high-speed data transmission, it allows computers, smartphones, tablets and other devices to communicate with the Internet and other devices using wireless signals, the main frequency band is 2.4G and 5G Hz. Due to the high-speed transmission and wide application of WiFi, it has become one of the important infrastructures of modern wireless communication. Usually based on the MQTT protocol of the application layer to connect to the server.
advantage:
- High-speed data transmission: WiFi supports high-speed data transmission, up to hundreds of Mbps, which can meet the needs of high-bandwidth applications, such as high-definition video and online games.
- Reliability: The reliability of WiFi networks is relatively high. Because modern routers have the function of automatically finding the best signal, and also have redundancy functions, even if a node fails, data can still be transmitted through other nodes.
- Convenience: WiFi networks are very convenient and can be password protected so that people who don't want to use your network can't get in.
- Extensive equipment: Wi-Fi equipment is extensive and supports many types of terminal equipment.
- Wide range of applications: WiFi technology is widely used in various occasions such as homes, offices, and public places.
shortcoming:
- High energy consumption: Due to the high-speed transmission of WiFi, it will cause high energy consumption, which is not suitable for application scenarios with long-term low power consumption.
- Interference: Since WiFi signals are transmitted through radio waves, they may be subject to electromagnetic wave interference, including microwave ovens, other wireless networks, etc. In addition, the signal can be interfered by physical obstacles such as walls and partitions.
- Limited coverage: WiFi coverage is limited, and the signal is easily affected by physical factors such as buildings. Large buildings, large public places, etc. need to use multiple WiFi hotspots to fully cover.
- High cost: The cost of WiFi equipment is relatively high.
WiFi is suitable for scenarios that require high-speed data transmission and large bandwidth, such as network access in homes, businesses, and public places. WiFi is also commonly used in the interconnection of devices in the Internet of Things, such as smart homes, smart offices, and smart cities. In these scenarios, WiFi can support a variety of applications, such as video and audio streaming, online gaming, telecommuting, file sharing, and more.
ZigBee
ZigBee is a wireless communication technology with low power consumption and high network reliability , which is used for short distance and low data rate communication. Its communication protocol is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which is widely used in the field of Internet of Things. Usually based on the MQTT protocol of the application layer to connect to the server.
advantage:
- Low power consumption: ZigBee's power consumption is very low, prolonging the service life of the terminal battery, so it is suitable for devices that need to run for a long time.
- Self-organizing network: ZigBee adopts self-organizing network, supports multi-level network topology, and can realize high-reliability communication between nodes. Therefore, it does not require a central control node to manage the network, and can automatically discover and join devices in the network.
- High security: ZigBee adopts AES-128 bit encryption, so it has high security.
- Low cost: The cost of ZigBee chips is low, so it is suitable for large-scale low-cost deployment.
- High reliability: ZigBee adopts multipath propagation technology, so it has high reliability of signal transmission.
shortcoming:
- Low data rate: ZigBee communication rate is low, less than 100kbp, not suitable for high-speed data transmission application scenarios.
- Short transmission distance: Since the transmission distance of ZigBee is short, 10-100m, more devices need to be added in the network to achieve greater coverage.
- Poor compatibility: ZigBee devices produced by different manufacturers may not be compatible, so it is necessary to consider the compatibility of devices when selecting devices.
- Network capacity limitation: Since ZigBee uses an unrestricted frequency band, the network capacity is limited and is not suitable for large-scale data transmission.
- Channel interference: When there is an interference source in the ZigBee network, it will affect signal transmission and reduce network performance.
- Frequency limitation: The communication frequency of ZigBee is limited and can only be used in a specific frequency band, generally 2.4G Hz.
ZigBee is suitable for scenarios that need to build wireless sensor networks with low power consumption, low data rate, low cost, and low complexity. It is very suitable for scenarios that have certain requirements for transmission delay and energy consumption, such as smart home, industrial automation, smart Agriculture, security monitoring, etc.
LoRa（Long Range）
LoRa (Long Range) is a low-power, long-distance wireless communication technology that belongs to the category of LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network) in the Internet of Things. It adopts spread spectrum modulation technology and forward error correction coding technology, which makes the signal transmission distance longer, the anti-interference ability is stronger, and the power consumption is relatively low, which can meet the long-term operation needs of IoT devices. Usually based on the MQTT protocol of the application layer to connect to the server.
advantage:
- Long-distance transmission capability: The transmission distance of LoRa technology can reach more than 10 kilometers, covering a wide range of cities, villages and mountains. LoRa technology can transmit information in different kinds of terrain and buildings without additional relay equipment.
- LoRa technology uses a low-power communication mode, which can be powered by batteries for a long time, reducing maintenance costs.
- High anti-interference: LoRa technology uses frequency shift keying (FSK) and spread spectrum technology, which can reduce signal interference and prevent eavesdropping.
- Low cost: The chips and equipment of LoRa technology are relatively cheap, and can be widely used in smart cities, smart homes and other fields.
- Easy to deploy: LoRa technology requires little infrastructure and can quickly achieve network coverage.
shortcoming:
- Low transmission rate: Since LoRa technology uses low-frequency bandwidth, the transmission rate is relatively slow, generally between 300bps-50kbps, which cannot meet the needs of high-speed data transmission.
- Large delay: The delay of LoRa communication is relatively large, generally between hundreds of milliseconds and several seconds, which is not suitable for application scenarios that require fast response.
- Does not support voice and video communication: LoRa technology is mainly used for low-speed data transmission, not suitable for high-speed data transmission such as real-time voice and video communication.
In general, LoRa technology is suitable for application scenarios that require long-distance, low power consumption, and low-speed data transmission, such as smart cities, smart agriculture, and industrial automation.
Comparison of LoRa and ZigBee
- Transmission distance: The transmission distance of LoRa is much larger than that of ZigBee.
- Communication power consumption: LoRa has lower power consumption than ZigBee.
- Anti-interference ability: LoRa has higher anti-interference ability than ZigBee.
- Network capacity: LoRa supports more nodes than ZigBee, and the network capacity is larger.
- Network Stability: ZigBee is more stable in environments with less interference.
- Transmission rate: The transmission rate of ZigBee is faster than LoRa.
Therefore, LoRa is more suitable for applications that require long-distance transmission, high anti-interference ability, and low data volume.