Motion sensor Zigbee Aeotec SmartThings (2023)

What is ZigBee?

Simply put, Zigbee is a wireless protocol used to allow smart devices such as light bulbs, sockets, plugs, smart locks, motion sensors and door sensors to communicate with each other via a "PAN" (Personal Area Network ).

As a stand-alone unit, you can use this PAN unmodified with devices such as remote controls, battery-powered wall switches, and handheld transmitters for basic control purposes. It won't be particularly smart, but for simple tasks like turning on the light without getting up to flick a light switch, it'll do just fine.

If you use the Zigbee network with aSmart Home Controller(e.g. from SmartThings, Hubitat or Homey), then the full potential of home automation is unleashed!

Why use Zigbee?

No smart home protocol can claim to be perfect or best suited for a specific application. So keep in mind that choosing a smart home controller that supports multiple protocols (like Zigbee, Z-Wave, and WiFi) and has integrations for other proprietary and cloud-based services is the best course of action for most people.

However, Zigbee has several compelling reasons to be the center of your smart home system, including:

• lighting options- Zigbee has a long history with lighting, there are far more options for Zigbee-based devices than any other smart home protocol, including LED bulbs, color-changing LED strips, light switches, dimmer modules, and more.
• Lower performance requirements- Up to 10 years of battery life.
• Optimized for battery devices- Due to the way battery-powered devices "sleep" and Zigbee's ultra-low power requirements, it's ideal for smart devices like motion sensors, door sensors, and water sensors.
• stability- Zigbee is a truly self-healing network, devices are automatically redirected when a device goes offline.
• Security- Zigbee uses 128-bit AES encryption, the same type used by online banking services.
• firmware updates- Over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates have always been an important feature for Zigbee, which allows smart devices to be updated easily and quickly.
• capacity- Unlike other protocols, Zigbee supports thousands of devices on a single network - up to 65,000! That's more than enough for even the biggest homes and means you don't have to manage multiple networks.
• accessibility- Zigbee devices are very affordable in general, often much cheaper than similar devices from other technologies like Z-Wave and WiFi.

How does Zigbee work?

Zigbee is an open standard for a low-cost, low-power wireless mesh network intended for the widespread development of devices for wireless control and monitoring applications. Based on the physical layer and media access control defined in the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, it natively supports mesh networks and provides secure communications by default.

With Zigbee-based devices, you get a robust, resilient and self-managing system. Zigbee devices are often much simpler than devices that use other protocols like Z-Wave, preferring to focus on specific tasks like motion detection or dimming a light rather than trying to combine many different functions into a single one. device.

What do I need for a Zigbee network?

For a typical smart home system, a basic Zigbee network can be formed with just three components:

• Zigbee-Coordinator (ZC)- This is usually the smart home controller (sometimes called a hub, gateway, or bridge). Your job is to set up the network itself, set up and maintain security, add devices to the network, and manage communications between them. There can only be one coordinator in the Zigbee network and it must be permanently powered.
• Zigbee Router (ZR)- Zigbee routers are permanently powered network devices and form the backbone of the Zigbee network. They direct communications between devices to create a literal route from one device to another. There can be many routers in the Zigbee network, and these are usually smart devices such as light bulbs, sockets, plugs, light switches and device modules - usually any Zigbee device powered by AC power.
• Dispositivo Final Zigbee (ZED)- End devices are the most basic network devices, they can only send or receive data, they cannot perform routing tasks. This means that they can only communicate with Zigbee routers or directly with the Zigbee coordinator. End devices are usually battery powered and are typically smart devices such as motion sensors, door sensors, temperature sensors and door locks.

Is there a fee to use Zigbee?

NO! Zigbee is integrated into the smart home devices you already want to use, so there are no additional fees or costs for using them.

Zigbee compatibility and interoperability

In the early years, Zigbee smart devices used to use "closed" protocols at the application layer, which meant that products from different vendors didn't work together, but luckily the standard has gone through many revisions to improve this.

Generally speaking, two Zigbee profiles are used - Zigbee Light Link (ZLL) and Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA). Devices in each profile should work together out of the box, and as long as your smart home controller supports a specific profile, devices in that profile should work in it.

Zigbee also uses a single frequency worldwide - the 2.4GHz band (same as 2.4GHz WiFi). This means you can use devices from all over the world on your Zigbee network without worrying about choosing the right frequency! Visit Silicon Labs for more informationReference.

There is also a new standard called Zigbee 3.0, which brings together the ZLL and ZHA profiles and combines the strengths of both into a new standard. In most cases, Zigbee 3.0 devices are compatible with Zigbee controllers that only support ZLL or ZHA.

The Zigbee Alliance now promotes Zigbee as aTo dieProtocol for the so-called "Internet of Things" (IoT) due to its open and non-proprietary nature and because it is now a mature, reliable and well-defined standard.

Which devices use Zigbee?

There are thousands of devices from hundreds of different manufacturers that use Zigbee, so you can be sure there's a good chance you'll find a device that will meet most needs.

Garage door controls, locks, lights, motion sensors, door sensors, smoke detectors, thermostats, remote controls, sirens, and home appliances are extensively covered.

Backed by some of the world's biggest companies, including Philips, Nest, Samsung, Texas, Siemens and Whirlpool, Zigbee technology is being incorporated into millions of smart home devices around the world. Lights, thermostats, alarms, refrigerators, doors, appliances, utility meters - all are Zigbee-enabled.

Recently, companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google have started to integrate Zigbee into their smart speakers and displays too!

Is Zigbee better than WiFi?

Current home WiFi standards are suitable for high bandwidth tasks such as video streaming, telephony, listening to music and gaming on various client devices such as PCs, laptops, smartphones and tablets. Unfortunately, they're not particularly suited to situations where many, many devices need to communicate quickly, but with far less data.

Most home WiFi devices are designed to support a maximum number of client devices - typically between 32 and 64 - so if you add up all the WiFi devices already in use, you might find you're already hitting those limits!

However, WLAN development is apace and the latest WLAN 6 standard devices are now available, supporting faster transfer rates, higher reliability and higher client density. So it's possible that WiFi smart home devices will start to compete with technologies like Zigbee and Z-Wave, although you will need to upgrade your WiFi infrastructure to receive these improvements.

Zigbee was specially developed for this and is therefore best suited for smart home applications.

Is Zigbee better than Z-Wave?

Both technologies have their merits, but overall the features and functionality offered by both are similar.

Ultimately, you don't have to choose between them - just make sure your smart home controller supports both and you can choose either one to suit your needs!

Do I need a hub for Zigbee?

In most cases, yes, a smart home controller (sometimes called a hub, gateway, or bridge) provides Zigbee functionality in your smart home. It lets you add and configure devices and create and run "logic" sometimes called flows, scenes, or moods.

These allow the system to do things automatically, e.g. B. turn on lights based on motion detection or turn up the heat temperature just before your family gets home so your home is nice and warm when they open the front door.

Zigbee devices can be used without a smart home controller for direct/simple one-to-one communication, but this only offers basic remote control functionality.

Is Zigbee safe or can it be hacked?

As with most technology, nothing is impossible, so anyone who answers this question with a resounding "no" is not being honest!

The Zigbee protocol itself uses 128-bit AES encryption and is based on the security model defined in the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Devices on a Zigbee network use two types of security keys to communicate: onenetworkkey and oneshortcutI like.

The network key is shared and used by all devices on the network to transmit messages securely. This key is generated by a "trust center" which in most cases will be the smart home controller. The network key is sent to all new devices that join the network.

The network key is never sent to unencrypted devices, instead a standard Zigbee connection key is used to protect the network key when it is transmitted to connected devices.

Connection keys are also used for encrypted communication between devices and are generated and provided by the Trust Center. This provides an additional layer of security as other devices cannot intercept this communication.

When it comes to securing your smart home in general, it's all about implementing best practices to mitigate potential issues. Adhering to industry standard and widely recognized technologies such as Z-Wave and Zigbee, using strong passwords, ensuring your WiFi and Ethernet network connections are secure, updating software on smart devices, hubs and gateways to keep them up to date - all these things will help ensure that your home automation system remains healthy, stable, and secure.

For more information on the security principles used in Zigbee, see theDocumentationworth reading.

Can I use Zigbee with Alexa, Google and Siri?

Yes! Some voice assistant hardware like smart speakers and smart displays support Zigbee devices directly, so you can start adding them right away. For others, you'll need to use a smart home controller that supports Zigbee technology and offers integration with your chosen voice assistant.

Once set up, you'll soon be barking commands at your smart speaker or smart screen!

With natural language recognition and machine learning, you can even make inferences instead of giving direct commands. Tell Alexa or Siri it's too dark and they'll automatically increase the light level accordingly.

Even better is being able to create lighting "scenes" that can be set automatically - tell the Google Assistant "It's movie night" and sit back while the TV is on, the AV devices are on, the shades are closed and the lighting can be darkened. All without lifting a finger.

Connect Zigbeehome automationDevices is extremely simple and easy to use and most of the time it only takes a single click to add a Zigbee device to your home network.

observation: A few steps away