Subject:
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BlueTooth bad, Zigbee good
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Wed, 1 Jun 2005 17:29:46 GMT
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Original-From:
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Bruce Boyes <bboyes@*spamcake*systronix.com>
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Viewed:
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1246 times
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At 07:47 PM 5/31/2005, Steve Baker wrote:
> > Bluetooth is a very versatile RF-communication that could allow real flexible
> > networking for multi-agent applications. This would be a much faster
> > communication than slow IR.
>
> Bluetooth has a maximum range of 30 feet. That's in optimum conditions.
> You might get down as low as 15 feet in real world applications. At 2GHz
> or so, it doesn't go through walls very well either.
Bluetooth is actually very poor for embedded or robotic applications. It's
a power hog, development tools are expensive (try $5000 minimum), true peer
to peer modules are almost impossible to get unless you are a Fortune 500
company, and the time required for a BT node to wake up, authenticate, and
transmit data is very long. BT is also overly complex for most embedded or
robotic applications. The range of 30 feet is not great either.
So what is OK?
Zigbee is much newer and is designed for use with embedded and robotic
applications. The time required for a Zigbee node to wake up, authenticate,
and transmit data is very short - less than 1/10 that of BT. Power
consumption is much less, and range can be 100 feet or more, depending on
antenna design and other factors. Tools are very affordable (sometimes
free) and dev kits are $300 or less.
There is a Zigbee alliance with a lot of major companies such as Motorola,
Samsung, Philips, etc:
http://www.zigbee.org/en/about/members.asp
Also get this white paper: "ZigBee and Bluetooth: Competitive or
Complementary?" at
http://www.zigbee.org/en/resources/#WhitePapers
We are designing a Zigbee node for use with JCX, (which will finally start
shipping this June/July after almost 4 years of development and testing).
We are planning on using the Freescale Zigbee chip MC13192. We have a
couple of their dev kits which were about $300.
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MC13192&nodeId=01752003088166
Properly designed Zigbee nodes can interoperate. What about BT? Vendors are
deliberately designing some BT products (such as cell phone headsets in
particular) so they don't interoperate for "competitive reasons". Pretty
dumb, huh?
The "BlueTooth" serial adapters which are available, and which most people
point to as BT for embedded use are a very hacked-down subset of BT and are
not generally useful. They support only two devices per network, with only
serial conversion. They are only useful for short range serial comm between
two devices, nothing more.
You can get started with Zigbee nodes from Mouser:
http://www.mouser.com/dlpdesign/
So to sum up, forget BT for robotics. Use Zigbee.
Regards
Bruce
------- WWW.SYSTRONIX.COM ----------
Real embedded Java and much more
www.jrealtime.com and www.tstik.com
+1-801-534-1017 Salt Lake City, USA
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: BlueTooth bad, Zigbee good
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| On Wed, June 1, 2005 12:29 pm, Bruce Boyes said: (...) You mean compaired to other comm devices, or compaired to a couple motors? I'd think if you have a moble robot, the motors are going to use much more power than anything else, right? (...) From (...) (19 years ago, 1-Jun-05, to lugnet.robotics)
| | | Re: BlueTooth bad, Zigbee good
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| I'm biased, so here's my rebuttal: 1. The JB-22 is a great, affordable Bluetooth development kit under $200 USD. (URL) Class 1 Bluetooth devices have a range of +300ft. Anycom makes one that is rated at 330ft, but tests have shown that it can (...) (19 years ago, 1-Jun-05, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Lego controller
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| (...) Bluetooth has a maximum range of 30 feet. That's in optimum conditions. You might get down as low as 15 feet in real world applications. At 2GHz or so, it doesn't go through walls very well either. Bluetooth is DESIGNED to have short range - (...) (19 years ago, 1-Jun-05, to lugnet.robotics)
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