The burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) market provides unlimited business opportunities. To be succeeding in the market, there are a number of commonly believed ‘essential elements’. These include interconnectivity, interoperability, compatibility and the ability to expand of an IoT ecosystem.
While the industry is still arguing about which IoT protocol or eco-system will eventually wins over and dominates. Yet, an increasingly wider range of IoT applications require various features to make them work for different scenarios and industries. None of the communication protocols or eco-systems could satisfy all of the needs alone that make the IoT ecosystem viable.
For example, 2.4GHz Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a low-power networking standard that could be used to provide communication between people and devices via mobiles. However, the communication coverage of BLE is limited to a small area (typically 20 metres). To the contrary, LPWAN technologies that operate on sub-GHz bands, such as ZETA, meet both the requirements of low power and long range, but ordinary mobile phones do not come with the ZETA interface.
To solve the problem, ZiFiSense has launched a very flexible ‘Unified Access’ network architecture. This exciting solution was based on the ZETA LPWAN technology. Implemented with Mote (i.e., the low power device that could work with a single dry-cell battery), the ZETA Unified Access not only fulfills different wireless protocols but also achieve interconnectivity between end devices, such as BLE, Zigbee and 6LowPAN. Ultimately, it serves to integrate short-range wireless technologies into an ‘IoT Island’ that provides accessibility to a wider range LPWAN ‘IoT Continent’.
ZiFiSense highlighted that large-scale use of ZETA Unified Access architecture delivers a low-cost solution to the problem of IoT fragmentation and therefore allow the emerging LPWAN technologies to grab a bigger share of the market.
Source: C114 China Communication Network