WSN Observation

Thinking Like A Dandelion (2)

2010-11-11T22:41:00.000-08:00

The competition among WSN technologies, has well gone beyond feature to something like eyeball economy of Internet or competing for attentions. When everything is equal – not for capability, but for imperfection – the technology has the highest mindshare and easiest access could very likely get the chance for a first try to prove concept if you want to call it this way. I have talked to an ANT sales in an industrial show several years ago. What they told me was that people tried Bluetooth and Zigbee, they failed then they eventually turned to ANT. Stop thinking that way any more! When Bleutooth Low Energy is well deployed, I bet any people from ANT still dare to just let people try BLE first and wait for them turning back, though they may still legitimately call ANT a technically better solution.
When four years ago Wibree becoming part of Bluetooth, people behind Wibree did think like a dandelion. I have indicated that BLE's success will be represented by the single mode chip volume, not the dual mode chip shipment. But the dual-mode-chip-on-every-phone is truly the “dandelion strategy” of BLE. Applying the metaphor, the dual mode chips are the dandelion seeds of BLE. Not all the dual mode BT in phones and notebooks will be used. But via phones, BT are everywhere in our lives. For any specific and weird problems that require a wireless solution, no matter it is to log your sports performance data, to remote control your smart appliance or to read a meter on a factory floor, a BLE equipped smart phone / tablet / notebook could be the most accessible technical candidate. When there are abundant entrepreneurs, engineers and software programmers readily to devote their time and brain power, the most powerful strategy is to enpower them to fulfill their thoughts. Who knows if one out of a hundred of the apps may really works and go big. Such that the BLE is to exploit every possible growing environment

Another point that the dandelion metaphor also tells us is no matter how small the piece of soil is, it worth exploiting. We will for sure be seeing the popular long tail phenomenon here too, that is, though there are a few killer applications, those not so popular contribute to a great deal of the volume in total as well. This is because these none popular applications are so many and each satisfy a very different need.

Take a look of Bluetooth shipment statistics, certainly you see headset has the most volume (I do not count mobile phones as an application, as they are the dandelion seeds), but the “other application” category also sits on top. Do you know Wii is using Bluetooth to communicates with its different types of gaming accessories? This type of use belongs to the “other application” category. We probably don't know it at all if not because it is Wii. Many such off-the-main-target potentials are out there. It may be a usage outside of any existing defined profiles and does not need interoperability. Each may only has several thousand a year in volume. But all together they form a huge amount.

So to make the technology like a dandelion to enable it to exploit every possible applications is the fundamentally crucial to penetrate into new segments as well as to protect existing market from being invaded. To find killer applications is just a side-product of such an endeavor.

A standard intending to have a fast growth has to be easy to access, cheap price, open source, easy to use … basically to remove as many things perceived as barrier to enable engineers and entrepreneurs to try the technology and eventually deploy it. To be equipped in every phone is definitely one of the key elements of this strategy. Other technologies like DASH7 and ANT, as well as Zigbee, are all very serious getting into phones, open source their codes etc... Things will not stop here.

The availability of Bluetooth Low Energy has at least forced the existing wireless sensor technologies to start to think like a dandelion to some extent.

Thinking Like a Dandelion (1)

2010-11-10T15:41:00.000-08:00

This disposition of each – or even most – of the seeds isn’t the important thing, from a dandelion’s point of view. The important thing is that every spring, every crack in every pavement is filled with dandelions. The dandelion doesn’t want to nurse a single precious copy of itself in the hopes that it will leave the nest and carefully navigate its way to the optimum growing environment, there to perpetuate the line. The dandelion just wants to be sure that every single opportunity for reproduction is exploited. – Cory Doctorow

Bluetooth SIG is to announce the result of its 2nd world cup of Bluetooth Low Energy application competition in these couple of days. There are arguments if this event is really efficient in searching for killer applications. I kind of have the same feeling. While such event is a good push to increase the awareness and trials among engineers. It can not be counted on for the killer application pursuit. Killer apps are from people trying to solve real, not fictitious problems. Bluetooth Low Energy has already been potentially better than its competitors in terms of enabling killer applications, it just needs to realize this advantage as soon as possible,
then to retain the edge.

What I am mean that “BLE is better” is in the term of ubiquity.

The context of wireless sensor network today is so different to the time when Wi-Fi and classic Bluetooth entered to our lives more than ten years ago. It is no longer two or three technology candidates competing at an industrial committee and then the winner get the unanimous endorsement from a handful of semiconductor suppliers. The advancement of semiconductor technology has made the IC price cheap enough and the platform programmable and flexible enough, so that companies with a good idea and protocol targeting to a relatively niche market are able build solutions on top of an existing chip platform and thrive as fast as a couple of years.

So we have seen a plenty of competing technologies, plus many more not listed here.

Zigbee – smart energy, health, remote control etc. 2.4GHz / 900 / 800 MHz, 802.15.4
Z-Wave – home area network; 800 / 900 MHz FSK radio
WirelessHart – industrial control; 2.4GHz, 802.15.4 radio
ISA100 - industrial control; 2.4GHz, 802.15.4 radio
ANT – sports, fitness, health; 2.4GHz, FSK radio
BodyLan – as seen in Nike+; 2.4GHz, FSK radio
Dash7 – logistics control and others; 433MHz FSK radio.

Sure, there are still the traditional way of committee grown and managed standards. But there are more proprietary protocols seriously in the battle field. The latter have taken the advantage of the cheap price and flexible platform of semiconductors to go after the targeting market segment without bothering the committees. Instead of being filtered by a room of so called specialists and experts, these protocols are instead filtered by the market. The competition is far away from stopping at the committee level (mainly on theoretical, academic debates, lab testing results, plus political fightings) and move further to the piratical engineering and customer and consumer acceptance. The roadmaps of traditional and the new proprietary standards are reversely different.

The traditional approach: raising proposal to industrial committee for review and compete with others => winning the committee => implemented by semiconductor companies => getting to the big market, thriving or surviving here, there or nowhere

The new way: Facing a real problem to solve and developing a solution => implementing on a semiconductor platform => going to the specific market niche, surviving or dying => if surviving, then forming its own consortium or going after existing committees for further growth in a bigger market.

This is the context of today's WSN world. The standards that we are aware of all have their reasons to stay. Especially for the proprietary protocol based “new” standards, all have been proven and are shipping in volume and have a leading position in their specific segment.

In such a context, where does the confidence of the late comer, Bluetooth Low Energy, come from when speaking of getting into markets, such as smart energy, sports and fitness, PC accessories, remote controls, industrial monitoring etc. It is from their belief of the prevalence of BLE on smart phones and the prevalence of smart phones in our life. Simply put, it is its assumed ubiquitous.

Bluetooth Low Energy and ANT, who cares?

2010-10-21T15:05:00.000-07:00

This post is my read of the interesting press release from TI about their Bluetooth Low Energy and ANT chips (CC2540 and CC257x). I think for anybody closely monitor the progress of BLE and ANT, it is worth investigating this press release.

First of all, did I said this before? TI really does not care about what technologies you choose. What they care about is your choosing their chips. So this is why when we users see Bluetooth Low Energy and ANT are fierce competing rivals, TI has a different view and this view allow TI to announce the two seemingly fierce competing product lines in one release. The key message: our solution is the most completed.

This is TI's unique marketing proposition. There are companies having both dual mode and single mode Bluetooth 4.0 chips, but only TI has also ANT. There are a company that has both BLE single mode and ANT, but it does not have BT dual mode. There are also companies have wifi, BT, GPS multi-comm chips, but again TI is able to add another ANT. Considering other protocols, like 802.15.4 based series, are provided, TI has the most comprehensive solution portfolio for the WSN industry. If I were a customer, I would prefer to consult TI for a neutral inputs of what technology best fit my use case.

This release has reconfirmed that the two product lines, together with 802.15.4 lines are managed by the same low power RF team. This is by all means good to customers. After my double checking of the datasheets, the CC2540 and CC2530 (Zigbee SoC) are indeed as my impression share the same pin-out. When under one organization structure, some negative line competition, for example, resource allocation etc can be avoided or mitigated, and marketing and sales efforts can be more aligned. These are all the advantage that TI customers can take.

Following this thought, I want to prove that if the BLE and ANT are actually based on the same die or the same architecture with tiny differences on things like memory size, I/O port etc. Technically, this should be totally possible as the PHY of BLE and ANT are so similar that the main technical difference could just be the firmware. This is how TI's WiLink part is able to support ANT through a cell phone host software upgrade, isn't? However except for the same packages QFN40, I am not very successful though. There is no CC257x datasheet available yet. Moreover from the information on TI website, there are seemingly more differences than similarities.

Two major technical differences:

The BLE part CC2540 is an SoC, while the ANT CC257x is a network processor.

Network processor is a TI term I believe. It is to describe a chip that has preloaded protocol but no room for application code. So you have to use a host MCU for applications. There is advantages to use network processor, because a product is simple to develop. Application code and protocol are isolated and linked through serial communications, or host controller interface. The drawbacks are the system cost, product size and so on caused by two chips in use.

In fact, all ANT chips from Nordic Semiconductor are actually network processors. Here is my understanding: unless the semiconductor is dual core (one for protocol and one for application), network processor is the only choice for ANT as a proprietary protocol, while CC2540 can use the same core for both protocol and apps. So this difference can not exclude that the die and architecture could be the same.

However, such situation presents a challenge to ANT still. To compete with Bluetooth Low Energy, ANT do need to have SoC in their next generation. With this being said, as simplicity (or KISS or KIDS) is more and more important to developers, BLE SoC may well be with ANT to drive for a dual core architecture. I do not see why TI will not do so. Eventually, the two rivals will again share with the same architecture with less differentiators semiconductor-wise.

It is understandable that some TI guys love to have network processor so to sell more MSP430 MCU. Check their Zigbee SoC and network processor offerings will prove this. Some engineers and companies do prefer to use network processor, so they have the freedom to pickup their preferred and familiar MCU to ensure a simple design and shorter cycle time. Sooner or later, TI will offer BLE network processor too.

Today TI announces BLE SoC and ANT network processor; tomorrow, they will add BLE network processor and ANT Soc into their portfolio.

CC2540 has +97dB link budget while CC257x is at +95dB.

I do not believe the BLE PHY is 2dB better than ANT PHY. (please correct me if I am wrong) From the CC2540 datasheet, its transmission power is upto +4dBm and its receiving sensitivity is -93dBm in high gain mode. This explains the CC2570's link budget.

I have one guess hat may partially explain this difference. ANT is actively using proximity pairing in its fitness and group applications now. And all of the current systems use Nordic radio which has maximum 0dBm transmission power. Allowing 4dBm should cause bad user experience. So the ANT engineers may calculate that 2dBm is still fine. To fully understand the number for CC257x, we probably have to wait until the datasheet published.

(BTW, as aside note, CSR's uEnergy can transmit at +8dBm with receiver sensitivity -92dBm; Nordic's uBlue has 0dBm transmission and EM Mirco's EM9310 4dBm, but neither of the latter publishes sensitivity data.)

PS: I am not sure if the ANT marketing guys have ever involved in creating or reviewing the press release. I guess they were and they were probably happy originally that again ANT bonded with Bluetooth Low Energy. What is frustrating is that some media only pay attention to Bluetooth Low Energy. In a way, some of the articles cited the press release did read like that ANT is part of BLE, or ANT is a sub-brand name of TI's BLE part. ANT guys call for help from ANT fans through its twitter @antplus. I do not think I am a fan of ANT. I am a fan of WSN at most. But I'd like to help to clarify the wrong perception. I'd like to see how smart small ant compete with mammoth with blue tooth. And I wish I could be invited to the next ANT+ symposium just as was @dcrainmakerblog. Ha ha...

Strange Blog may Disclose Something

2010-05-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

There is a new post on TI's Bluetooth Low Energy blog, Bluetooth low energy and coin cells

I felt strange when I first read the blog, but could not tell what it was. Is Bluetooth Low Energy supposed to be operated by a coin cell? Definitely! This is what BLE is all about.

Now I just had a second read, the conclusion of the TI blog says "The most interesting thing, though, is that the effective battery capacity is the same for both the 15 mA load and the 30 mA load. The effective battery capacity turns out to be approximately 120 mAh (there is some variation battery to battery) for both 15 mA and 30 mA max loads using CR2032 cells at room temperature. Now, this means that the cell is used for pulsed operation, it must be de-rated from the 230 mAh that is typically given for constant current (usually given for a <1 mA load), but it does seems to disprove the theory that you cannot use coin cells if your (pulsed) load current is higher than 15 or 20 mA."

Take a look of the competitors of CC2540:

1. Nordic uBlue. The peak current is 15mA.

2. EM Micro EM9301. The peak current is 14.5mA

Now, can you deduce something?

I guess that CC2540's peak current is much higher, probably 30mA as the test alluded, but the sleep current is on par with or better than the Nordic and EM Micro products, thus the average current of CC2540 for a normal Bluetooth Low Energy operation is still competitive. This makes the TI post a lot of sense. All TI is doing is probably to prove that the high peak current of their CC2540 actually does not matter for a real BLE application.

Anyway, this is an interesting test if the results hold true. I bet most of the coin cell suppliers does not know this fact. But high peak current is after all not a good thing. Even though CR2032 is fine, how about other types of batteries? how about energy harvesting?

Compare the Comparison

2010-02-12T14:16:00.000-08:00

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle. - Sun Tzu

Once upon a time, comparing to Zigbee was a must-to-do for any emerging technologies doing wireless sensor network. Z-Wave did that; ANT did that; WirelessHart did that; Dash7 has done that and is continue doing that. All have proved to be successful to some extent, Z-wave in home area network, ANT in sports and fitness, WirelessHart in industrial control, Dash7 is active RFID. Isn't comparison to competitor an effective marketing activity?

Zigbee is the first open standard of wireless sensor network, initially targeting to all the possible use cases people can ever imagine. But one thing can not fit all. Each late comer has one focus and one point strong. They beaten or try to beat Zigbee at that point cared by a particular market.

Now Bluetooth Low Energy is the latest jumping into the wireless sensor battle field. Whom does BTLE chosen to compare to?

The recent Bluetooth SIGnature magazine published a comparison table. Bluetooth Low energy choses to compare with Zigbee and ANT. But it is a very disappointing comparison.

Akiba from Freaklabs, a Zigbee lover, posted "Whew...haven't seen a trashy comparison like this in a while. They seemed to have omitted a few details like multi-hop capability, security comparison, and device profile availability, etc... Basically, as I usually say, each protocol has its strengths and weaknesses and is a good fit for some markets, and totally sucks for others. Zigbee, ANT, and BTLE are no different"

Obviously the following in the comparison table are not true,

1. Distance/Range:
Many factors determine the achievable range of a radio, the output power, the receiver sensitivity, the data rate etc. Using similar GFSK radio for BTLE and ANT, there is no way that one is significantly better than the other. If one is better, the difference should not be user noticeable.

BTW, there is also a hilarious mistake that it reads as BTLE and Zigbee are not good for communication within 10 meters.

2. Frequency hopping:
BTLE uses just one frequency for one connection event. It does hop to another frequency for the next connection event, which will happen when CRC error is detected. But this is the kind of frequency hopping in broad definition and will not provide the same benefit as the frequency hopping used in classic Bluetooth.

ANT is able to do this kind of frequency hopping too. ANT calls it frequency agility. Apparently this frequency agility has not been widely implemented in ANT devices, but it has it.

Also unfair for Zigbee, though it does not use FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum), it uses DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum). There is pros and cons in between DSSS and FHSS.

3. Connection to mobile phone / computer / watch:
Large installation base on mobile phone and PC is the biggest strength of Bluetooth, but it is Bluetooth classic not Bluetooth Low Energy. It will take years to Bluetooth 4.0 to prevail, though this step seems a natural evolution.

But isn't ANT strong in sports watch? How many ANT watches are in the market today branded Garmin, Suunto, Timex etc.

4. Network nodes
The number of nodes in one given network or the number of uniquely addressable nodes in total (the capacity of unique network address), which is the definition here? No matter which, there is no way for a technology to have unlimited network nodes. Such an insane statement just reminds me how Bluetooth low energy gave themselves a full mark score in Continua Health Alliance. You can not do this in a serious technical writing.

Enough is enough. A comparison need to show where you are really strong at and where others are really weak. I do not see that in this comparison from Bluetooth SIG.

Interestingly, doing a search of any other comparisons among the three technologies, I found one provided by ANT. http://www.thisisant.com/why-ant/how-ant-compares However, it is a bit outdated and only compares to Bluetooth. But it says, "Current data on the not-yet-released Bluetooth Low Energy indicates that it will cost 25%-35% more per sensor node and consume a minimum of 25% more power for the same data transmitted." This ANT comparison makes more sense to me. I still have question markers. but much smaller. Apparently it claims ANT is better on current consumption, cost and networking capability.

By all means, Bluetooth SIG should have done a better comparison job than what is published. At least as I know, BTLE is better at security and privacy, which may not be important in sports applications, but is concerned in health and home related use cases.

My last word to BTLE in this post, do not repeat the mistakes made by Zigbee. If the SIG thinks Bluetooth low energy fits almost every use cases, as listed in the comparison table (Health and fitness monitoring, wrist devices/watches, proximity applications, remote control (e.g., home entertainment), mobile phones, industrial automation, gaming, PCs, automotive) and put efforts on every direction, it will go no where.

2009 Retrospect - Getting to the Battle Field

2010-01-18T19:56:00.000-08:00

2009 continued to be a buzzing year for the world of ultra low power wireless sensor networks. More people, up to the president and down to normal consumers, started to realize how these technologies could improve their daily lives, thanks to the efforts of companies and organization from different sections all coming together. Two prominent forces are from smart energy / green power and health / fitness.

In response, in 2009 the WSN world left us with

1. Many new open standards announced and released
2. Fast ever growth of proprietary solutions, many of which have completely morphed into "open" standards, widely admitted or not.

New Open Standards:

1. Bluetooth Low Energy: Though only up to the controller layer, BTLE specification finally made into the BT core spec V4.0 before Christmas. The specification has been long waited since the announcement of Wibree joining Bluetooth in May 2007. I believe those competing technologies are the main reasons causing the schedule slippery. I witnessed those fierce debates in Continua health alliance, e.g. on broadcasting vs. P2P, which at that time, BTLE was not able to support. The late comer should be better than the existing players. The open standard should be better than the proprietaries. At least this is what many people believe. BTLE when fully released in April should not make the industry disappointed.

2. DASH7: A standard running on 433MHz with a solid root in RFID applications, DASH7 is the application layer of ISO 18000-7, which is similar to Zigbee on top of IEEE 802.15.4. DASH7 naturally put its first focus on logistic and asset tracking, which has generally been left by other technologies because of many technical challenges. Some great marketing efforts of DASH7 alliance has made the standard known by the industry in a very short time. Their marketing has convinced me that attacking Zigbee is still not an outdated tactics.

3. ISA100.11a: Released in September. Though WirelessHart has been there for more than a year with products in use, though both technologies are based on the same IEEE 802.15.4, we did not see a united plant automation market. Many experts claimed it is impossible to converge the two. Frustrating enough, this, in my eyes, is a winning of one camp led by Honeywell over another including Emerson for reasons not much technical.

4. Wi-Fi Direct: Don't forget about this announcement in Oct. Though it is to enable point to point high speed applications and not to primarily intend any sensor networks, the implication to personal WSN technologies could be huge. At this early stage and as a outside observer, my guess could be irrelevant or far off the track. But I dare to throw out my thought here. Besides the impact to Bluetooth already pointed out by many analysts, Wi-Fi could work with one of the ultra low power WSN solutions in the market today to form a complete solution to replace Bluetooth, high speed and low power. Technically, the advancement of semiconductor allows this to happen.

Growth of Opened -Proprietary Solutions:

We should really gave them a concise new name acceptable by all, instead of calling them either "proprietary" or "open". Today, the open standards (Bluetooth and Zigbee) call them proprietary though respective self-claimed consortium have established.

1. EnOcean and EnOcean Alliance: well established in building automation and light control segment. Over 100,000 buildings have been enabled by EnOcean, it goes the furthest among all other proprietaries by offering its standard to the public. In near term, there seems no other serious competitors in its market niche.

2. ANT and ANT+ Alliance: 2009 was a busy year for ANT to prepare for the expected competition from Bluetooth Low Energy. The biggest news was Texas Instruments has licensed ANT to deliver System-on-Chips. Thus, two of the four BTLE single mode chip vendors also offer ANT chips. Their twitter also reported phone chip maker engagement. True or not, getting into cell phone is one of their objective. The alliance has grown to close to 200 members with dominant position in sports market. Some fitness equipment makers starts to offer ANT+ links in the year also.

3. Z-Wave and Z-Wave Alliance: 2009 was the first full year of Z-Wave under the reign of the new owner Sigma Designs. It continued the growth in home automation market though not creating loud noises. I think the biggest progress of Z-Wave was that many home energy monitoring devices has built Z-Wave link along with Zigbee. For home area networks, a complete solutions can not exclude Z-Wave.

Others:

1. Zigbee continues to grow its portfolio and list of promise. In 2009, we saw RF4CE joining Zigbee and the completion of Zigbee health care profile and remote control profile. Product wise, the biggest successful story to me is the location solution from Awarepoint for hospital asset tracking, somehow the alliance has not put any serious efforts on.

2. Continua Health Alliance selected Zigbee as low power LAN solution and Bluetooth Low Energy as low power PAN solution. This was the only face to face competition in 2009 and basically on paper. I have said enough and have several posts before and after.

2009 was a year that late comers hurried in and current players solidified their stands, but the competition on paper was interesting and entertaining enough already. We can not wait for the real battles this year and 2011, when products are in the market and end users are able to make their choices.

(This is a late review that I planned to post before Christmas. But after searching around, I do not see anything available yet. So hopefully, you find it is still useful. While writing, I did not do any press release scanning, rather I trust my personal impression.)

Bluetooth Low Energy Hype 3: Watch the Watch

2009-12-16T16:43:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, Dec 17, Bluetooth Low Energy will publish its first release. I was told that the v1.0 is only just up to the link layer. Those upper layer protocols, such as profiles are still under work and will not be released until Q2 of 2010. Somebody has already tried to downplay the importance of this release saying that with this partial release, no product can really be built in 2010.

I think after waiting for two years, those who are not patient have already used other competitive solutions out there; those who has been patient will be patient for another several months. And I believe those who are in the inner circle of BTLE SIG are developing products now based on beta profiles. So soon after the publication of profile, products, though not many, will be available in the market.

In this post, I will continue the BTLE hype series by looking into the BTLE networking deficiency. This is really an issue.

Bluetooth is phone centric, so is BTLE. For those million or billions of forecast, more than 90% is the deployment on cell phones. But the addressed markets are different enough, that phone centric is no longer adequate.

I should elaborate a little bit. Both Bluetooth and BTLE fall in the personal area network category. The bottom line for a successful technology is to solve personal problems. For the use case of Bluetooth, the phone is the person, and the person is the phone. I mean it is rare that one person carry more than one phone, and the phone is rarely shared. So phone centric is people centric. But in the BTLE use case, the phone is likely only part of the person, and the people is more than just the phone. To understand this, think about the situation that you were running on a treadmill and your exercise data (heart rate, pace etc.) wound be preferred to be received by both your treadmill to display real time and your phone to record. In fact, you are very likely not carrying a phone but a watch when having the exercise.

To speak in a more technical language, the Bluetooth use case is an one-master star network, but such network will not be able to address the market that BTLE is intended to, where multiple masters and multiple slaves are usual.

The success of BTLE is measured not the installation base of cell phone where dual mode chips are used, but the proliferation of single mode chips to be used in sensor, watches and other "peripherals". These chip vendors will naturally go after the proven markets, or low-hanging fruits. What are they? the sports market that have been dominated by 5KHz analog (Polar), ANT and Nike+, and the remote control market in competition with RF4CE.

In the sports use case, predominately watch (or iPod) is the centric. In cases, like the threamill case above, there are multiple masters. But in the phone centric BTLE, watch is first the accessory ("peripheral") of phone, or in BTLE term the single mode slave of the dual mode master. This kind of slave watch can not be used to recieve heart rate and speeds independently and directly without a master phone. Unless a BTLE watch can change master / slave on the fly, the watch can either be the phone accessory to receive caller ID and short message, or the watch be the receiver and display of heart rate and othe sensors, but not both. Hang on a moment, what will it like when both a phone and a master watch are in a network?

Let's check the remote control market. In RF4CE, the remote is the master of the entire network. Equipments can share information each other, but has to be through the master remote control. For this use case, the focused RF4CE is sufficeint. Bluetooth Low Energy covets this market, but can BTLE copy the same model of RF4CE? No, the phone centric BTLE will not stop there. BTLE will definitely take the advantage of the phone and create the use cases such that you can use your phone to control TV and other things. However, how many phones will be in vicinity? will only one phone be allowed to control? When I control the TV using my phone, can you also control using your remote? BTLE will face another situation of multiple masters and multiple slaves situation in remote control market. Who will win the remote control market remains to be seen. If BTLE lose to RF4CE, I think it will partially caused by the mess created by itself.

I think here I am creating several more BTLE varieties in addition to single mode and dual mode. The new varieties are singlle mode slave, single mode master, signle mode dual role, dual mode master, dual mode slave, dual mode dual role. Otherwise how can BTLE address the multiple master situation. Of course these vareites can not be teh solution. It is too complex. The single mode device has to be simple and the overal network has to be user friendly and offer common user experience.

I do not think there is a solution now, and I don't believe in the near future in BTLE ver 2.0, the solution will be cost effective either.

Zoom out a bit, in BTLE SIG, I can see the conflict of interests of the watch camp and the phone camp. So when we exlaim the birth of BTLE tomorrow, here is a cup of cold water to clear your head.

The "Long Tail" of WSN and the Smart Semiconductor Vendors (2)

2009-11-05T15:10:00.000-08:00

Realizing the long tail of WSN will open your eyes and ears if you are on the user side who needs to press the button. For people like me, whose opinions, though, are interesting but most of the time irrelevant, catching the long tail at least make these industrial conferences a lot more entertaining, though sometime in retrospect.

Often when a group of companies all touted one technology, the presenters of those long-tailed semiconductor vendors stood up and said something astonishing that made everybody awake.
Two years ago, I was in the probably first Bluetooth Low Energy conference, while many BT pure-players and supporters were really high, the guy from Nordic semiconductor claimed "proprietary solutions will just not go away" followed by his comparison that at certain points like power consumption and cost, proprietary solutions had its advantage. In the same conference, when people criticizing Zigbee and chanting BTLE would deliver, the guy from Texas Instruments calmly explained that Zigbee is infrastructure based and is more suitable than BTLE in addressing certain problems.

That was when Bluetooth Low Energy was still in vapor.
They can not say it too obviously in that kind of environment, but the message the ventors want you to get was "don't wait, come and buy our existing products."

Now the BTLE specification will be released before Christmas; chips will be in the market next year. The messages from the long-tailed companies have been changed too. On the surface, they become more aggressive. TI did demonstration in the SIG's first BTLE conference. Nordic has reported more often about its uBlue chips and progress. But they are playing a balancing game.

Sometimes the game were not really well played (and therefore entertaining!) For example, the folder to all attendees of BTLE SIG conference in Munich contained the Nordic newsletter, which like their website, mixes materials promoting BTLE, ANT and their proprietary solutions. The funny thing was how this newsletter could skip the eyes of the SIG, so that on the stage it was said BTLE will claim the death of other technologies; off the stage, these technologies seem to be able to live harmoniously together.

TI did not allow BT SIG the chance to make this kind of mistake. But if I presented two product sheets, one is from the ANT+ symposium early Oct, the other is from the Munich conference two weeks later. What do you think?

I mentioned that BT SIG may regret to have BTLE radio too similar to its existing competitive solutions. But this makes the semiconductor vendors, like Nordic and TI, happy. The benefit for them is one chip architecture can support different protocols. If you do not believe, you can correlate their relevant product press announcements and have a guess. TI is even going one more step further. They have made the chips of the two totally different radio technologies, 802,15,4 (or Zigbee, SimpliciTI etc.) and BTLE, share the same pin-out.

Don't be confused when you hear a company say this in one conference and say something else in another; or see them promote competing technologies. These vendors are just saying "come to buy our products, any one of them and up to you!"

If you are struggling comparing technologies and making up your mind. You need to be clear 1. there is no perfect solution 2. trade-off is required based on a thorough understanding of your application requirements. A long-tailed vendor may give you the better technical assistance.

The Long Tail of WSN and the Smart Semiconductor Vendors (1)

2009-10-28T15:50:00.000-07:00

WSN has a long tail. Let's count: based on 802.15.4, we have Zigbee, WirelessHard, ISA100.11a, MiWi, Cyfi, SimpliciTI, Crossbow, PopNet, Synapse, Greenpeak, JenNet, MeshScape.... Under the cloak of Zigbee are Zigbee-2006, Zigbee-Pro mesh, Zigbee-PRO IP, Zigbee-RF4CE, ... Categorized into 2.4GHz GFSK radio are Bluetooth Low Energy, ANT, Nordic desktop, Nike+ (BodyLan)... Sub 1GHz are Z-Wave, EnOcean, Dash-7, Wavenis, Sensium ...

"Long Tail" describes a new (is 4 years old still counted "new"?) discovered phenomenon of what we are living with abundant choices, and provides the theory to the business model prevailed in the cyberspace and perfectly utilized by companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, eBay...

Most vendors or customers in WSN industry do not feel comfortable seeing such a fragmented or segmented industry. Sure, one of the hardest thing in the world is to make choice, esp. when the choice made by a person is not for the person but for a company. A lot of people are hoping an "open" standard will unite the segmented WSN industry, which will make their choice a non issue. One standard makes everybody on the same page. If the standard is bad, it is bad for everybody; of course, the same goes if it is good. On the other end, some vendors, not only by nature tout how superior their technology is, but also are eager to claim other technology's death, cursing others evil radios, blah blah blah. If you are one of them or you want to avoid to be one of them, I suggest you read the book "The Long Tail", then re-think, then learn to live in this longtailed world.

The long tail theory is about abundance, on the contrary to scarcity that most economy theory care about. It is first stunning by claiming that 80% of profits are coming from 20% of customers or products is outdated in many markets traditionally contained or distorted by the physical limits of the supply chain, such as the warehouse size, the retail shelf space and etc. As an example, Chris Anderson, the author of the famous book "The Long Tail" gives the number of new movies and songs created every year, the number of movies and songs are able to hit the screen or radio, the number of movies and songs turn to tape, DVD or CD. But Internet gives those movies and songs able to be nowhere a place to stay. These apparently "killed" works, after being aggregated, categorized, tagged and are made searchable, amazingly have consumers willing to pay for. Further amazingly, the totally amount of profit earned from these otherwise dead movies and songs are no longer ignorable, 20%, 30% and some 50% fo the total revenue. Viewing the numbers on a chart, the used to be short list of profitable products is getting longer and longer, thus the name of "long tail".

No doubt, the technology advancement plays an important role to enable the long tail. The low cost of making first allows a surplus of products; Internet and PC creates the ever customer accessible retail points (right on your computer); Amazon, iTune, Adsense, eBay... create the business platform that aggregates and categorizes these products. But fundamentally, it is the unlimited differences among the customers or consumers needs, flavors, preferences. What all the technologies have done is just to free the right of choice, for both the makers and the buyers.

Take a look of the WSN industry. The long tail is already a reality, a reality of no technology fitting all, a reality of the close to zero hardware cost to commercialize a protocol. The long tail is formed for some reasons. For the same reasons, there is no way to make it short.

Pick range as the starting requirement. The straightforward choice is to pick a low frequency band over 2.4GHz, but then frequency band is not globally available. Ok, choosing 2.4GHz and using a complex modulation scheme and mesh to extend range, but then you hit the wall to see an increasing power consumption, heavy loaded protocol and complaints of hard to design. Moreover, 2.4GHz is not usable under water and badly absorbed by human bodies. When the supporters of reliability have a louder voice, you tend to add things like CDMA, frequency hopping, redundancy and other sort of techniques, only to see an exploding code size, complexity and cost. You may create a protocol able to meet industrial applications, but basically be out of consideration by the consumer market. To trade-off two, three factors are easy, how about 8, 9... 20, and inter-related ones? Somebody develops scoring and weighing system and even more complex models. The result is obvious a compromised one that does not fit 100% of any use case.

But on the other side, the semiconductor industry has made programmable microcontroler with much reduced cost of flash memories, the different types of RF radio become commodity, integrated MCU and radio into one (SoC system on chip), integrated multiple MCU, (duo core and multi-core) and has been able to make multiple communication protocols co-exiting in one chip.

What does this mean? That means A can develop a protocol towards this direction and load it to a semiconductor for this market, and B can develop a protocol towards that direction and load it to a semiconductor to that market. Both protocol A and B are using the same radio, or even the same base semiconductor. That also means, as a semiconductor vendor, C's goal becomes to develop a semiconductor architecture that can be protocol agnostic to fit both the needs of A and B. C can ship products loaded with either protocol A or B with almost zero additional cost to fit different customer needs.

This is a non secrete for Zigbee semiconductor vendors, or to be accurate, IEEE802.15.4 radio IC vendors. Less than 1/3 shipped radio were loaded with Zigbee stack; the rest of the loaded protocols are sitting on the long tail.

To a customer, though it is difficult, I believe having options is a better situation than of no choice.

Bluetooth Low Energy Hype 2: Semiconductor Price is Below $1.00

2009-10-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

"Bluetooth Low Energy will add almost zero cost to Bluetooth chip." "The price of Bluetooth Low Energy chip will be sub $1.00." If you have ever attended any Bluetooth Low Energy presentation, you probably have heard these messages. This concept has been well accepted and used as a price benchmark for technology evaluation in companies and in organizations. The reason is because 1) who said it. For me, I heard this message from Robin Heydon, the co-chair of BTLE working group. 2) how much people like or expect it. People believe the volume of Bluetooth chip will be several hundred million a year, and this volume, as well as multiple vendors in competition, should drive the price down. Sub $1.00 cost sounds just so reasonable.

But for most of the manufacturers, sub $1.00 price is irrelevant!!!

In my last post (hype 1: cell phones will offer the critical mass), I already pointed out the complex product matrix of Bluetooth. So you first question should be "is the sub $1 price for dual mode, single mode or both?" This answer is very straight forward, this price can only be possibly true on dual mode device. BTLE single mode chip will be more expensive than dual mode. Ironically, this message was also delivered in a Q&A session of a Bluetooth conference that I attended, but it seems did not go far.

Dual mode chip sounds more complex than single mode, so why the price of dual mode Bluetooth is even cheaper. Because dual mode chip and single mode chips are targeting to two different design environment, one is mobile platform and the other is ultra low power embedded systmes.

Dual mode chips are supposed to be used in cell phone or PC, where a much powerful host computer is in presence. So Bluetooth protocol implementation is usually cut at the Host Controller Interface(HCI), leaving other high level applications and profiles out to the host. These dual mode IC do not need to have a complex IO ports to look after analog and digital inputs or outputs, except for the interface with the host.

Semiconductor die size and volume are big factors for the low price too. The more transistors able to be integrated, the smaller the size and the cheaper is the semiconductor. The most advanced and mature semiconductor manufacturing technology today is 45nm, and foundry companies are working towards the next generation 28nm today. Any generation forward is a huge investment that only high volume device is capable to bear and amortize the huge investment. And low volume devices will just be more ecnomically use technology often several generations back.

Remember nowadays, Bluetooth is coexisting with other radios (usually Wi-Fi, FM and GPS) on one chip. These chips adopts multi-core architecture often with reserved memory or MCU core for new functions to fit the market dynamics. Adding BTLE to this kind of architecture could basically zero hardware cost.

Other than dual mode for mobile platform, single mode chips mainly dealing with embedded system design, require a much complex digital and analog mixed and System on Chip architecture to include a complete protocol stack, an API for applications, a comprehensive I/O ports, A2D and serial interface and a ultran low power friendly timing and power management. It requires a much different semiconductor expertise to design, but with a 10x lower volume in production. I have not seen any SoC (802.15.4 or preprietary) is at 45nm, most of them at 180nm.

So any idea of the target price for BTLE single mode chip? I guess at around $2.00 when it is launched at relative high volume say 100k. My guess is based on the product announcement from Nordic Semiconductor, which is the leading vendor of ultra low power wireless in 2.4GHz, including BTLE, ANT and its own proprietary. In its recent ANT part nRF24AP2 press release, "Pricing is USD $1.8 and USD $2.1 for 50k shipments of nRF24AP2-1CH and nRF24AP2-8CH respectively." I believe the Nordic BTLE part will be at the similar range and even higher. ANT and BTLE will compete neck to neck to the same market. In order to survive, ANT has to offer some price advantage to compensate its disadvantage (perceived but may not be true), such as lack to cell phone accessibility and not from an standard organization.

So sub $1.00, if you are top five cell phone manufacturers, is your Bluetooth chip price; if you are a sensor manufacturer, forget about sub $1, and budget your products with at least $2.00 for the BTLE chip, possibly $3-4 at low volume to start.

As I publish this post, Bluetooth SIG will hold the First International Bluetooth Low Energy Technology Conference. If you attend, why not raise your hand and get the confirmation from Bluetooth SIG directly?

Bluetoth Low Energy Hype 1: Cell Phones will Offer the Critical Mass

2009-09-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

The top Bluetooth evangelist Nick Hunn states in his blog "For Bluetooth low energy it should be easy. One of the clever aspects of the standard is that the Bluetooth low energy technology is incorporated into the next generation of normal Bluetooth chips, so an increasing number of mobile phones will incorporate it for free. That gives a critical mass of hundreds of millions of handsets that can act as gateways or displays for a new generation of products.... Bluetooth low energy will gain market traction." "Because of its integration into handsets, Bluetooth low energy is assured of success in reaching critical mass."

What he forgets is that the industry context of Bluetooth Low Energy is totally different to the context when Bluetooth Classic was first to the market.

With the introduction Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth chips have split into two groups: dual mode and single mode. The dual mode Bluetooth chip is for cell phones and note books. It supports both Bluetooth classic and Bluetooth Low Energy, whereas the single mode chip is only for sensors. The table below lists semiconductor companies that have announced their Bluetooth Low Energy products.

	Single Mode	Dual Mode
Broadcom		x
CSR	x	x
EM Micro	x
Nordic Semiconductor	x
ST-Ericsson		x
TI	x	x

There are only two semiconductor companies announced doing both, TI and CSR. CSR announced dual mode first, then early this April it announced the plan of single mode. But besides Bluecore 7, the dual mode architecture, I have not found anything more publicly about their single mode plan. TI discloses more of their BLE work through their blog. TI's single and dual mode chips are from two different divisions, Low Power RF and Wireless Connectivity Solutions. The Low Power RF organization is the acquired company Chipcon in Norway.

What this tells us from outside is that dual mode and single mode are two different animals, that requires different semiconductor expertise. Dual mode cares less about the power consumption, as it will be powered by lithium Ion rechargeable batteries. Single mode is all about coin cell battery operation for at least 1 year. Looking at the chip architecture, single mode BLE part is an SoC with full BLE stack implementation; while the dual mode part is cut at the Host Controller Interface, with the upper Bluetooth layers and applications deployed on the cellphone hosts or the notebooks' CPU. So technically, the single mode part is technically a more challenging endeavor. Karl Torvmark of TI gives a very clear description of this architecture difference in between BLE dual mode and single mode chips in his blog What is 'Sing-chip"

By realizing this fact, we can challenge the statement that cell phones provide the critical mass to Bluetooth Low Energy and assure its success.

Let's first review another fact not much in favor of Bluetooth - the ~20% attachment rate world wide, which has been reached after ten years span. Attach rate in simple explanation is the percentage of cell phones whose Bluetooth are in use (linked to an earphone or connected to PC...). Bluetooth organization has given itself a targeting or forecasted attach rate 8% for the first year of BLE. It remains to be seen for how long Bluetooth Low Energy can reach this goal.

Though BLE's targeting markets range from sports, to medical, to homes, even to industrial application, the low hanging fruits are the personal sports sensors (heart rate monitors, speed and distance sensors) already conquered by other radios like ANT, Nike+ and the legacy 5KHz analog systems. In the trend that digital sensing to replace analog, ANT and Nike+ are far ahead, neck to neck with approximate 5M each in shipping volume shipment in recent 2-3 years.

Do not look down this 10M volume. The usage model of ANT and Nike+ is basally one on one and multiple on one, which I mean 1 sensor actively connecting to 1 hub (a watch, a dangle ...) or multiple sensors to 1 hub. People buy them in pairs or in package. The model of Bluetooth is to pre-invest the hub device base, and hoping companies will be attracted to develop accessories. In the classic Bluetooth world, this model works perfect and survived and grew companies like CSR from start-up. The same business model will not work as easy in the market established by others but new to Bluetooth Low Energy.

Companies making single mode chips are not fooled by the Bluetooth cell phone base illusion. They are very clear about the up and downs of BLE and its competitors. Nordic semiconductor, the company providing the low power expertise to Bluetooth SIG, is actively selling three solutions, BLE, ANT and their own wireless desktop protocol. They never say they will become a pure player of BLE. They are now the vendor of both ANT and Nike+, as well as Logitech in wireless mouse and keyboard market. In the past July, a new generation of ANT chip nRF24AP2 family were announced.

TI is becoming more and more a protocol agnostic company. In the low power RF arena, TI has both 802.15.4, the Bluetooth and sub- 1GHz radios to support protocols like Zigbee, Bluetooth, WirelessHART, SimpliciTI, Sensium etc. TI has joined ANT+ alliance. I will not be surprised if one day TI announced an ANT chip family.

Bluetooth SIG may be very regretful to take a lot of inputs from Nordic in defining the BLE physical layer, that is not the same as the competing ANT and Nike+, but still too close. Too close that these single mode chip companies can design one semiconductor architecture to serve both the BLE and the competing technologies, putting eggs in more than one baskets. So what? So Nordic and TI can sell the chips no matter their customers want to develop BLE, or ANT or Nike+ sensors. So the presumed scale of economics advantage of BLE chip will be taken away by the competitors, which will be cheaper, at least not more expensive than BLE.

Nick is correct that cell phone access will provide Bluetooth Low Energy the traction, but cell phone is unable to offer the critical mass. And.... the cell phone traction may not as solid as he or people think.

Keep coming back for more discussions. Welcome comments.

To Start a Bluetooth Low Energy Series

2009-09-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

- Richard Feynman, Rogers Commission Report on the Challenger Crash.

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE or BTLE) is supposed to be released end of this year. The hype is rising to the peak. History teaches us, the public relations do not tell us lies, but they do not tell us the whole truth either. They are telling us all the good parts, amplified by the humongous marketing machine, with the conditions and limits minimized sitting at the corner of their poster. This is the job of the so called public relations. But we, phone manufacturers, sensor designers, OEMs, application developers deserve to know the whole picture.

Reading in between lines, cross-referring announcements and conference presentations, chatting with those who participate the protocol writing and those who actually make the chips, I have figured out some of the "aha". This series is to share my analysis and thoughts, not to promote or demote this technology, but to do something that the PR guys should do and have not done or done enough yet.

Inputs and comments are more than welcomed.

Forced Marriage is Not Sweet - Thoughts on Continua Low Power Radio Selection

2009-06-08T05:45:00.000-07:00

As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know" - Donald Rumsfeld

The unknown unknowns can not bother us, since we don't know. The known knowns can be accepted, adopted and lived with. Somehow, it is the known unknowns that frustrate us.

Today Continua Health Alliance announced the selection of Bluetooth Low Energy and Zigbee as its choices of low power radio for its version 2 interoperability design guideline. Will this announcement settle the low power radio competition? At least this is what a lot of people hope. Think the following questions:

1. Who is doing what?

In Continua's official statement, the organization picked Bluetooth Low Engergy and Zigbee for different applications. The announcement says it this way,

"The two wireless technology standards are targeted to support mobile and fixed location devices as defined by the next iteration of the Continua Health Alliance Design Guidelines. The alliance has selected Bluetooth low energy wireless technology (...) to enable low power mobile devices such as activity monitors and heart rate sensors to be used to monitor a user’s health and fitness levels. Additionally, Continua has selected Zigbee Health Care technology for low power sensors that can be networked in a variety of settings, and utilized in devices such as motion detectors and bed pressure sensors to enhance the daily living of those who require assistance aging independently."

So there is a clear line in between mobile and fixed location devices. Think again. If I want to monitor my heart rate or blood pressure, do I need to prepare two sets, one is to use inside a "professional settings, homes, recreation centers"; and another for use with my phone and watch in order to have a walk outside? Or there will be gateways or bridges or Zigbee/Bluetooth co-exist sensing devices. This sounds a solution. But wait, do we wish low cost and low power consumption? Will such a device require three certifications from Zigbee and Bluetooth and Continua?

I bet that Bluetooth Low Energy will get into "fixed location devices" and Zigbee will also cross the line to offer "mobile" applications. If you do not believe me, go grab a marketing presentation from each organization and have a read. When there is a mine of business, who is Continua? Both Zigbee and Bluetooth Low Engergy want to do both PAN and LAN. Continua made a compromised choice of today, but left a long pain and challenging management job for years.

2. Bluetooth Low Energy reigned by Continua?

Continua selected Bluetooth Low Energy is under a condition. "The alliance has selected Bluetooth low energy wireless technology (pending finalization of the specification) to enable low power mobile devices." The benefit of select a standard in working is the possibility to influence the standard to develop in the desired direction. This is not my saying. This is the savvy of Continua.

The low hanging fruits of low power radio application is consumer electronics in sports and fitness, not home automation, nor health. Look at the market of ANT+ and Nike+. If we consider Polar's analog sensors, together they have delivered more than 20 million products. This market is proven, mature adn growing. Products include heart rate monitor, foot pod, watch and phone (not yet, but someth alike, as iPod and bike computers). But the majority of Continua companies are focused on medical devices. The requirements of a sports application are different from a medical application. One of the significant one is about the position of IEEE11073 standard, which is part of Continua standard today. IEEE11073 is designed for connection-oriented protocol (USB and classic Bluetooth) and is heavy for any low power radio.

To compete with the existing ANT+ and NiKe+, any day from now before Bluetooth Low Energy getting into the market is a day for competitors to grow. The consumers care more of what work for them and care less of Bluetooth or Continua. When the business is flowing to competitors, will Bluetooth Low Energy be willing to listen to Continua? The release of Bluetooth Low Energy specification has been slipped n times. The new target is the Christmas of this year. I believe any new requirements from Continua will further delay the schedule. To be realistic, I would say it is a good job if the Bluetooth Low Energy spec can be published in Q1 2010.

3. Will Zigbee and Bluetooth Low Energy get along, cooperate and really put consumers in front to offer an integrated and complete solution for Continua use cases?

"A rigorous process was employed over the course of ten months to select from many outstanding technologies". This process is politically rigorous, but not technically. Zigbee had done a great job through out the process to miff Bluetooth. But this process miffed Zigbee in the end. The competition in between this two technologies is obvious in the market today and this Continua process had pushed the competition to a new emotional level. (see my post "how did a radio get full mark") A married couple in such situation will divorce. Now Continua forces them to get married. As they get married, let's have the best wishes to the couple anyway.

4. Will the evil radios go away, eventually?

Except Sensium, all other three radios, ANT+, BodyLAN (Nike+) and Z-Wave are actively delivering products to different consumer markets, and have built eco-systems. This Continua announcement establishes a barrier for them to get into the health market. But I hold the belief that Continua / Bluetooth Low Energy / Zigbee will unlikely take over their markets completely either. This announcement will make these evil radios more focused. To some extent, not being selected by Continua may not be a bad thing for these proprietary technology based solutions at all. Because to achieve ultra low power radios requires focusing to the exact market needs and trading off others.

After years when we look back, this Continua low power radio selection could just be an event, not a milestone to the ultra low power wireless sensor industry. let's wait and see.

How did a Radio Technology get Full-Mark (Barcelona 2)

2009-04-09T15:15:00.001-07:00

(I hope this post could add your Easter fun. It is your "fault" to take it seriously. )

Continua summit on Friday Mar 27. I called it "amusing", but somebody may feel frustrating.

The technical working group started with the low power radio selection process report. First it was ANT taking back their yes vote to the low power PAN scoring rules, which was finalized the day before, stating they were "faced with an non PAN bias and refused a real voice of change". It was an uncomfortable moment. Somebody else murmured something, seemingly supported the statement. Some Zigbee company guys chuckled. The meeting chair controlled the process and did not allow this to disturb the atmosphere. The presentation moved ahead. Soon after, the TWG members enthusiastically voted yes to approve the scoring sheet of LP-PAN and LP-LAN.

I sat there thinking that the ANT complaints may be true, because Zigbee companies do control the low power radio process. Philips has staff sitting in the leadership roles of use case group, end-to-end architecture sub-team and LPR sub-team. Proposals from Nokia (BT LE), Polar (BT LE) and Dynastream (ANT) could hardly get through. No time to ponder. The important, long expected and with high-hope self-evaluation started, this time in a reversed alphabetical sequence.

Zigbee first. It was the former Zigbee vice chair Jon Adams of Freescale. Again he highlighted that over 30 Continua member companies are also Zigbee Alliance members. (I had thought he might want to hide this fact. But as he pointed this out, he should have further pointed out that more than 1/3 of the LPR sub-team participants are Zigbee members) After praising the very successful demonstrations on Wednesday, he started his pitch on the newly announced Zigbee health care profile and how Zigbee can benefit the Health industry. Jon had all kind of reasons to be very confident going into self-scoring in the last.

One of the important step in the LPR radio selection is technology scoring. The LPR team has worked for about a year coming out of two scoring sheets, one for LP-PAN and one for LP-LAN. The scoring sheet has 10 categories. Each category has 10 points. The ten categories are

Transport Desired
Transport Adoption
Type of SDO
Implemented Globally
Costs
Interoperability Support
Continua Technical Alignment
Security
Power Consumption
Networking Capabilities

The first category "transport desired" will be scored based on a Continua TWG "informal" survey result. And in the last minute, the cost category was pulled out because some legal concerns. So a full mark of the self-evaluation will be 80 points.

Zigbee first scored on LP-LAN. They gave themselves 78 out of 80. I have several technical doubts about their scoring on power consumption and localization. But as the score was this high, I could not help feeling Jon was mercy to reduce two points on transport adoption. Jon may feel giving Zigbee a full mark was not appropriate in this situation.

That specific criteria is about how many "radio IC" in history have been sold and a technology could get full mark if the volume is greater than 20 million. I thought Zigbee could give themselves full mark for this criteria though the volume of Zigbee is not that high, but the
802.15.4 radio IC has definitely reached that plateau.

The scoring on LP-PAN ran even faster, as there are many common criteria between LP-LAN and LP-PAN. Jon took an additional point off on power consumption, as he claimed they "have many products working on coin cells on 15.4" but he would not give himself that point. But on the presentation, it was written "can support coin cell on both ends." If this is true, let's expect to see Zigbee or 802.15.4 enabled sports watch soon in the market, as well as Zigbee or 802.15.4 enabled heart rate monitors and foot pods. Another big question of mine was the claimed 10 month battery life on the given usage scenario. So Zigbee rated itself 77 out of 80 on LP-PAN

The next were Sensium and BodyLAN. After seeing the high scores of Zigbee, I just could not wait to see the self score of Bluetooth Low Energy. And I know the presenter was Robin Heydon of CSR , co-chair of BT LE SIG. I had read the funny squabble betten Robin and Bob Heile , Chair of Zibee, before.

But you had to give Sensium and BodyLAN the chances. Sensium said they only do PAN and scored themselves 40.5. The battery life on the aforementationed use case is only about 4 month as they presented. BodyLAN gave themselves 59.5 for PAN and 58.5 for LAN. For BodyLAN, the key message was the suggestion that Continua should open its ecosystem to accept all PAN and ULP PAN technologies at the high application layer.

Finally, Robin was on the stage. But we had to wait for a long time. His slides were not provided at the start of the meeting. At the moment, Robin came with his Mac and insisted on plugging
in directly. Being refused, he eventually deposited the deck on a USB drive. I have to admited, Robin is one the best technical presenters I have ever met. On some of his slides are just one large number, such as the current shipping volume of BT chips, the predicted price of BT LE chip in 2009, 2010, 2011. He disclosed some detailed how-to of BT LE that are not public available.

After his blurb, Robin started score-scoring. The first criteria was the sales volume in history, he claimed if Zigbee could give themselves a 5 points for Radio IC history volume, they could claim
10 based upon reaching an assumption that silicon was released on spec version 0.9 and they had backward compatibility. The audiences laughed. For those who do not know why people laughed, different versions of Zigbee specifications (-2004, -2006, -2007, and ZigbeePRO) may not be compatible. That is the unspoken blemish of Zigbee and Robin dared to makes joke of it publicly. As he gave BT LE 10 point on this one, he had no hesitation to continue score 10, 10 and 10, even though the notes on the presentation seemed not suggesting a 10 mark for all. BT LE got 80 out 80 on LP-PAN first, then without suspense, 80 out 80 on LP-LAN.

By then the meeting room were enlightened and I knew what he did before his turn. Robin was high, but unfortunately he was cut off at the end for going too long and too much time was wasted to set up his presentation.

Robin's presentation gave the rep from ANT a hard time. But in general, he managed to make the whole atmosphere back to the ground. He urged people to look at the actual use cases not
the interpretations of IC history, battery life and other fictitious criteria. I was quite surprised to see the battery life for the use case was only 7 months or so, even shorter than Zigbee. (Should I blieve the number given by Zigbee without proof?) On his slides of the self score were many icons of frustrated face. ANT gave themselves 68.5 on LP-PAN and 69 on LP-LAN.

I have no idea how a serious result could come out. Maybe as I said in my post on the day of this Continua event , a delay of the low power radio selection is the best choice. Or as the BodyLAN guy suggested, Continua should open the low power radio part of the ecosystem to all.

Only "Evil Radios" Have Products (Barcelona 1)

2009-04-06T08:29:00.000-07:00

Bluetooth Evangelist Nick Hunn posted "Zigbee and the evil Radio ", analyzing the competition between Bluetooth Low Energy (BT LE) and Zigbee for the crown of low power wireless standard. Not agreeing on all his points, I admitted he did point out the reality in front of BT LE and Zigbee.

Nick indicated that BT LE will easily reach the critical mass because the volume of cell phone deployment, which is enough to support the economics required by the semiconductor suppliers. "So whether or not the smart energy or Continua Alliance supports it, Bluetooth low energy will gain market traction".

Then, Nick presented charts and numbers to indicate Zigbee's desperation. "In contrast, ZigBee PRO needs to win the approval of key industries if it is to survive. At a recent conference a spokesman for one of the major chip companies behind the ZigBee PRO healthcare profile let slip the fact that if it failed to win Continua approval, his company would probably kill their ZigBee PRO healthcare development effort. Other proponents within the ZigBee PRO camp are openly talking of the competition with “evil radios” as they ramp up the level of rhetoric (and give this piece its title). That smacks of an increasing level of desperation, but then again, ZigBee needs this approval far more than Bluetooth."

Nick's post was online Mar 27, exactly the same day of the Continua Technical Working Group meeting when each of the technology rivals presented their self-scores. The "evil radios" here refers to those proprietary-based solutions such as Z-Wave, ANT etc. If we count the technology contenders for Continua Health Alliance, this list should also include BodyLAN and Sensium.

I had some concerns of this Barcelona summit (see my blog "can we have hopes for Continua Low Power Radio Selection "). But I had still anticipated some serious technical debates and self-evaluations. Now I look back my Barcelona trip. The turn-out was somewhat surprising. Also surprising is the quiet media afterward. If we exclude Nick's post, there has been no press release, report or blog describing the event. Last year was totally different. CSR made two press releases for the BT LE demonstrations, even for the very premature demo based on the draft version 0.5, followed by hundreds of blogs. (see my posts "Witness of ULP Wireless Demonstration " and "Bluetooth Low Energy Technology Demonstration: Progress made but Questions Remained ")

In Barcelona, the low power radio events was split into two 3-hour sessions on two days; March 25 was the technical demonstration and March 27 is the self-scoring. If allowing me to use one word to describe each event, "hyping" is for the first day and "entertaining" is for the second. As I said I was surprised, so Mar 25 was surprisingly hyping and Mar 27 was surprisingly entertaining.

First surprise, Z-Wave, the number one competitor of Zigbee for home automation applications, did not show up at all. In fact after Zensys being acquired by Sigma Designs , Z-wave has not created any noticeable noise in Continua. But to me, compeletely quit was not in my expectation. Continua should feel very disappointed, as Z-Wave is the market leader in terms of deployment volume in the home market.

The second surprise was the two cheap press releases on the day of demonstration. The first one was from ANT , announcing the preview of nRF24AP2 product series which offer AES-128, frequency agility and sub two dollar volume price. The second was from Zigbee announcing the "completion of the development of Health Care public application profile" with "full support for IEEE 11073".

In my view, both announcement were for the purpose of Continua. The ANT release was actually from Nordic Semiconductor. The mentioned product nRF24AP2 will not be sampled until June and the AES-128 feature will not be available unitl end of this year. Anyway, this is a hardware annoucement three months in advance.

Relatively, the Zigbee release is even cheaper. The entire release is full of gobbledygook. I wonder how serious for the commitment to "full support" IEEE11073. I know all other low powe radio technologies say that the IEEE standard is too heavy on overhead and not suitable to direct implementation on top of low power radio. Now for the already not "ultra" low powered Zigbee, what the power consumption could be if running IEEE11073 ontop? It is also hard for me to understand the "completion of development" of a document or profile without giving a verison number. The release also does not mention any relavent product in design and availability to the market.

Of course the main focus of the wendnesday afternoon was the technical demonstration and presentation: Each of the five companies, in alphabet sequence, presented and demonstrated the technology in front of the ~50 audiences. Each company also had a table top display setting. ANT, BT LE and Zigbee all demonstrated systems. Sensium only presented a dev board based point to point setup. I can not remember anyting BodyLAN showcased.

ANT is the only technology dare to show power consumption. It showed in front of all the audiences the multimeter readings of two ANT modules served as transmitter and receiver. ANT is also the only technology presented commertial products (watches, bike computers,weight scale, heart rate monitor, food pod etc.) from amazingly many brands, like Garmin, Timex and Beurer. A commertial iPhone bridge was also very insteresting with an application claimed available on iTune. Still ANT has not been build into cell phones yet. But here is another alternative to the miniSDIO card approach.

BT LE demonstration was very plain. A Polar heart rate monitor sent data to a Nokia phone then to a PC application. The demo was even less impressive than they did last July. ("Bluetooth Low Energy Technology Demonstration: Progress made but Questions Remained ") I still feel they should be able to do a much better job. Something frustrating in the BT LE SIG?

Probably, the withdrawal of their top competitor stimulated Zigbee guys, they did an amazingly good job with multiple companies involved, such as Philips, Freescale, Motorola, Telecom Italia etc, half of the member companies sitting in the Continua Low Power Radio sub-team. A network was set up in and outside the demo room with multiple routers. The most impressed was a moving ECG sensor able to send data to a PC through different routers as access points. Another setting was a weigh scale transmitting data which hopping several routers and gateways to reach a web service terminal outside the room. So people had to yell the readings. A Moto Q phone with a Zigbee miniSDIO card (from the same supplier of the ANT miniSDIO card) was presented in this setting. Certainly neither the weight scale or the ECG was coin cell powered. So their last demo were wearable sensors from a company called 24eight. With the movement of a body, a PC is able to plot a chart on the screen. But I feel the sensors, like the weight scale and ECG, were just prototypes.

Impressive as it was, the demonstration could probably change a lot people's impression of Zigbee. However, for an ultra low power technology, Zigbee was not able to demonstrate coin cell powered hosts and routers - except for the Moto Q, all other Zigbee hosts and routers were main powered. This will remain the biggest drawback of Zigbee. Because of such a good demo and such as big unaddressed issue, Zigbee's demonstration could be the hype of the day.

Therefore, the third surprise of mine was the quietness of BT LE in the contrary of the Zigbee hype.

And the forth is the availablility of products in the markets. Calling the forth surprise or disappointment, after an entire year, we still only see ANT having products available in the market. If considering Nike+ is powered by BodyLAN, then we have two. But unfortunately, both are the so called "evil radios". Being shipped in volume regardless, this is why these proprietary based solutions are evils in the eyes of the industry standards.

Can We Have Hopes for Continua Low Power Radio Selection?

2009-03-25T13:52:00.000-07:00

Six wireless sensor technologies are competing started from today until Friday, face to face, in public, to become low power radio standards of Continua Health Alliance. I use "standards" instead of "standard", because a lot of people wish two technologies be selected, one is for, in the Continua technical working groups term, "LP-PAN" and the other is for "LP-LAN".

The event is the Spring summit of Continua Health Alliance in Barcelona. Just last Friday, David Whitlinger, the president of Continua Health alliance received an interview by Brian Dolan of mobihealthnews. A detail blog was online the same day. This publishing speed let me believe the view points disclosed are close to the real idea of the president, without second thoughts and withdrawals. Of course, I am more interested in his comments about low power wireless technologies.

Here is what he said:

"So, what we can expect from Continua in the year ahead?

Version 2 of our guidelines is well on its way. Some of the new things going on: There is another radio selection that’s going on. A lot of the work toward choosing it is beginning in Barcelona at a summit this coming week. That radio selection will be predominantly geared toward the health and fitness devices that are typically body worn. The shoe pods, heart rate straps and other things that are body worn sensors. Being able to connect those to a cell phone or a fitness watch or the broader Internet. There are a number of candidates for this radio technology: Bluetooth low power is on the list; Zigbee is on the list; ANT is on the list; BodyLAN is on the list. There are several of these low-power radios. So that radio selection is going on this next week and then the other use cases being address via low power radio are the sensors that might be distributed throughout the home of an elder individual, for example. The bed pressure sensors, the motion detector sensors and so forth. That radio selection process is also scheduled to begin soon. It’s possible they could both be the same technology, but because the use cases are different there is an option that there could be two separate radio technologies. We will make some announcement on that once the decision is made, but it will take a bit of time for us to put some messaging around that."

I read out something new that are different from what I've heard and felt from my Continua participation. And this something new is what I like to see.

First of all, the body worn sensor is the prime. The president did not say it. But I selectively read this way. I am a not a believer of home automation. (See my blog Any Flaws in Home Automation Use Cases and A User's Experiences of Z-Wave).

Secondly, one technology for both use cases should be the target. It makes more sense to have one technology to cover both, for example you can use your watch or phone to monitor your heart rate, but also to control the room temperature, as well as having your daily activity and health data uploaded to PC for tracking.

There are always reasons for the unreasonable. From day one when low power radio was still in use case study, political issues have been convoluted with the technical and market needs. Sure this is common among all standard organizations. So I was not surprised at all that the two-technology option is driven hard by TWG with dominant voices from technology vendors of BT LE and Zigbee, because Bluetooth Low Energy can not do complex network and Zigbee can not do body worn.

Let's go to Continua low power radio selection process. Certainly, no process in the world is perfect. But there is one fatal in this Continua one; that is "the players are also the referees". It was a group of technology vendors sitting together to generate the use cases. It is the same group of vendors sitting together to make the scoring rules. It will be the same group of vendors fighting to score others and defend themselves. In the low power radio discussion, if we can still call it discussion, it is always who has the most members who win. Zigbee org seems put a lot of hopes in Continua after they have not seen success in homes, buildings and factories. They have several key organization leaders sitting in Continua discussion and even be the editor of documents. Just as what I said, there are always reasons for the unreasonable. But I can only guess but do not know why and how this is allowed.

But where is customers' voices? Can consumers have an opinion? From the voice of the Continua president, at least I see a slim hope. We DO need not-for-profit guys in not-for-profit organizations.

I really do not know what to expect for the low power radio standard. For the peace of Continua, the ideal situation is Zigbee winning LP-LAN and Bluetooth Low Energy winning LP-PAN. Any other results will cause turmoil within Continua. However, will any of the two technologies meet the marketing requirements? This is what David Whitlinger should concern most.

There are four other technologies competing with Zigbee and Bluetooth Low Energy. They are ANT, BodyLAN (used in Nike+), Sensium and Z-wave. Has Zigbee won Z-Wave in home automation market? When will the standard of Bluetooth Low Energy be released? Among the four SDO competitors, ANT has created the loudest noises, interests and concerns. I think in a lot guys eyes, ANT is really the BUG. It creates the noise and the mess, and just won't go away.

ANT claims it can do both LP-PAN and LP-LAN; it is the best on power consumption; and it is the most comprehensive to address different kinds of usage scenarios. In the last two weeks, the noises from ANT is not just from within Continua, but outside in the market, and with its partners. ANT probably has more press releases in the last two weeks than in the past two years. On purpose or coincident? ANT has announced Microsoft Healthvault and A&D medical (also a Continua contributing member) joining ANT+ alliance, Epson C17 dev kit to support ANT modules and the launch of fitness equipment digital interface. They published some new demonstrations on you tube.

In my opinion, the most likely result from the low power radio selection due by April is of no result and delay. This may be the best choice for Continua now.

Sensor Algorithm and ULP WSN Go Hand-in-Hand

2009-01-07T14:40:00.000-08:00

In recent months, there has been a very emotional debate in the Continua Health Alliance technical working group regarding the inclusion of broadcasting as a mechanism for sensor data transmission. In the current (version 1) Continua standard, only the point to point (P2P) wireless link is specified (Bluetooth). The session layers above stipulated by IEEE11073 are also based on P2P connections. This is understandable as it best address the needs of many current medical sensor use cases where reliability are strictly required. Now in the process of specify version 2 standard, it is pointed out that P2P solution is power hungry, with large overhead and is not energy efficient to address the ultra low power requirements of many wearable sensors. Dynastream, the inventor of ANT, is the leader lobbying Continua members to accept broadcasting. In Continua Boston summit, a presentation was made by Dynastream, and got support from some other companies like Polar who are now offering ultra low power sensors today. But the resistance is also high. It seems a lot of concerns are related to the relationship with version 1 standard and are from Bluetooth camp.

The debate is in truce now and will resume soon after new year. I went through Dynastream's presentation again and tried to peel off the political shell to view the argument from a neutral standpoint. I see this presentation from an ultra low power wireless sensor practitioner is really thoughts provoking. Many points in the presentation can be further explored. But here I just want to share the most critical in my view, the development direction and trend of the ultra low power and wearable sensors.

In Dynastream's description, using broadcasting, unlike point to point communication, a sensor just broadcast the data and receivers selectively receives data (similar to cable TV). Sensors basically do not care the receiving party nor the successful delivery of data. At first glance, broadcasting seems a technology inferior to P2P which consists of complex process like handshaking, authentication, acknowledgment and retransmission etc. But as Dynastream claimed there is a type of sensors that really do not care reliability as much as other sensors, and because of this trait, broadcasting can be used to send information efficiently. Trade-off between power saving and reliability is doable and has been proven by market. Dynastream claims with the acquiescence that all the current ultra low power sensors in sales for the sports market today are using broadcasting. Such type of sensor has the following characteristics:

1. The data to be transmitted wirelessly is changing slowly (per second)
2. So missing one or two data is not critical
3. And the latest data is more important than those missed

Examples of this type of sensors include body temperature, heart rate, weight etc. In comparison to this kind of sensors, those fit to use P2P communication, for example, ECG, blood pressure, need to transmit reliably every bit of data, so that a central computer unable to put on body can process the data and deduct useful information. In the presentation, Dynastream used "complementary" to plot the relationship of P2P and broadcasting to address the two different kind of sensors.

Behind broadcasting is an entire different philosophy!

The data transmitted from the ECG leads or Blood pressure cuff have to be received accurately and reliably, but the information deducted, e.g. heart rate, heart beat intermittence, blood pressure are quite slow changing. Thus, if the computation function can be moved to the leads or to the cuff, then broadcasting can be used without much sacrificing of reliability. So to make a wearable ultra low power wireless sensor is all about to move the computation function from a central hub to the sensor node.

Let's explore this further by examining one of the popular use sensors, foot pod. There are two types of foot pods, both measuring a runner's speed and distance. Nike+ foot pod uses piezoelectric sensor and counts the time intermittence between two steps. From there, an algorithm deduct the running speed and distance. ANT+ foot pod is more accurate and complex, which uses accelerometers to measure the movement of your foot to deduct the speed and distance. No matter how a foot pod works, it does not transmit the raw data, rather it calculate the data to obtain the information of interest and then send or to be accurate, broadcast it using ultra low power wireless technology. Should the raw data has to be sent, then the P2P connection has to be used to ensure reliable delivery of every bit of the data or "waveform", so that useful information can be calculated by a more sophisticated computer.

In summary, if a sensor is to measure a direct input, like temperature, weight, heart rate, ON/OFF etc, it fits to use ultra low power wireless; likely broadcasting is the most efficient way. If a sensor is to measure something deducted from some direct inputs, depending on the size and complexity of the algorithm. If the algorithm is compact enough to be able to fit in a small memory size and resource and power limited MCU, then the sensor fits ultra low power. Otherwise, P2P connection has to be used. In the last case, the sensor can hardly be 24/7 wearable with long battery life.

So besides the wireless technology, another R&D area of wireless sensor network is the algorithm of all kinds of sensors that enable distributed computation to allow useful information deducted right at the sensor node.

Algorithm and Ultra Low Power wireless sensor network go hand-in-hand.

ANT vs. Bluetooth Low Energy

2008-10-30T13:22:00.001-07:00

Bluetooth Low Energy is a late comer to the personal wireless sensor networks, which is predominantly covered by many proprietary based solutions, such as ANT+, Nike+ and many other old analog systems. Will Bluetooth Low Energy win the market? Some companies will definitely adopt standard solutions and they will wait patiently until Bluetooth Low Energy releases. Other companies believes in time-to-market and has jumped on the proprietary wagon, hybrid wagon (see Go Hybrid Go ) to be accurate. No matter which kind of companies, one curious question to all has been how these solutions compare. As Bluetooth Low Energy is still in draft v0.7 developed by a closed cabinet. Such a work is mission impossible for outsiders for now. Finally, valuable information is disclosed in the Bluetooth Evolution Conference last week by the product manager of Nordic Semiconductor. Nordic is one of the three semiconductor companies (the other two are TI and Epson) that are sitting in both Bluetooth Low Energy Cabinet and ANT+ Alliance; and Nordic is the only one that offers ANT chips today. So I personally believe his comparison is accurate and it is between ANT and Bluetooth Low Energy. Although in his slide, ANT is no where to found, but he did mentioned positively during his Q&A session.

Here is his statement for power consumption: "(Bluetooth Low Energy) is fairly good compared to existing proprietary 2.4GHz solutions." "Some highly optimized solutions will be slightly better...by some tens of percents", because of Bluetooth Low Energy's "complexity" and "compromises to enable dual-mode interoperability"

Here is his statement comparing silicon cost: "(Bluetooth Low Energy) is fairly close to existing solutions." with "tens of percents (additional cost) with current silicon platform"

He further listed the following weakness of Bluetooth Low Energy:

limited network topologies
power compromises
cost compromises
late to some markets

Bluetooth Low Energy only supports one master at a time. Basically this means that, like Bluetooth classic, the Low Energy is a cell phone centric protocol. If both a phone and a watch (or PC, PDA etc) present in a network, the watch can only be the accessory of the phone and will not be allowed to receive sensors information. And if the phone is taken away, the network will be broken and needs to be restarted to set the watch as master to link to sensors.

When being asked, he apparently held a negative view for Bluetooth Low Energy to get into the sports and fitness market, where we see strong ANT+ presence, as well as Nike+.

There is also an interesting conclusion points: "(Bluetooth Low Energy) complements other ultra low power technologies." This may be his best wishes, because Nordic has both Bluetooth Low Energy and ANT products, or could be the acceptable reality for Bluetooth Low Energy.

Go Hybrid Go: Proprietary solutions not gone, but morphed and stronger

2008-10-22T05:34:00.000-07:00

Last October in the 1st Bluetooth evolution conference, the two semiconductor rivals for ultra low power radio, TI and Nordic Semiconductor, both stated, during their presentations in front of a hall of industry experts and medias, that proprietary solutions will not go, quite stunning to the many Bluetooth Low Energy (then still called ULP Bluetooth) enthusiastic audiences and disconcerting the pleasant atmosphere.

As a relatively new comer to the ultra low power wireless world at that time, I was one of the stunned audiences and thought the reason these two companies claimed this way should be simply because both have their own proprietary solutions. Was it sounded natural and reasonable that standards such as Zigbee and Bluetooth Low Energy should unify the segmented industry? Using open standard, paying zero royalty fee, developing products, companies across the supply chain work and compete in a fair playing ground. Shouldn’t things just work like that?

In the just passed 2nd Bluetooth evolution conference, Nordic semiconductor further has claimed that for sports market, Bluetooth Low Energy is too late to the market. Its technology competitor, ANT, has gained the momentum and started to dominate this niche.

ANT is far from a single such cases. There are several major proprietary solutions that facing competition of a standard, not only did they disappear, they compete right on and have been growing even faster and conquering more market shares. Interestingly, they all unanimously become hybrid, establishing an open industrial consortium to provide interoperability and integrate supply chain based on its proprietary solution. To take a quick look:

Z-Wave Alliance: building on Zensys' proprietary solution, Z-wave, a 160 member organization, is probably the first such hybrid solution for wireless sensor network. It competes with Zigbee head-to-head and we all know who is the current winner of the home automation market. Started from Denmark, Zensys is private and now headquartered in silicon valley.

EnOcean Alliance: on top of EnOcean's proprietary solution. EnOcean alliance only established this April, but already has more than 60 members. A spin-off of Siemens, EnOcean offers unique building automation solution combining self-powered or battery-less power technology with wireless networking. Again, it competes with standard organization Zigbee and has taken a big chunk of the pie in the building arena.

ANT+ Alliance: based on Dynastream's proprietary ANT protocol, ANT+ Alliance is another alliance established around this April, but its membership growth rate is even faster, with more than 90 member companies right now. ANT sometimes claims it can do complex networking and there are white papers comparing ANT to Zigbee. But the main market of ANT is actually sports and fitness. So a more appropriate competing technology of ANT should be Bluetooth Low Energy Technology, which is of course still in draft. Dynastream was purchased by Garmin end of 2006, which adds a little bit complexity to the ownership of ANT.

If viewed in reference of OSI model, the above hybrids alliance are examples of open upper application, presentation and session layers on top of proprietary lower physical, data and network layers.

The term "hybrid advantage" in stemmed from genetics study. The reproduction from a pair of two different varieties of a species may create a new generation that has characteristics better than either of its parents. In the real world, after a long long natural selection process, the survivals are often the hybrids who best fit the environments. In this fast moving WSN industry, the hybrid solutions take the advantage of focus from proprietary and the advantage of interoperability from standard. No wonder could they win the game with its competitors often slow reacted and distracted.

In the WSN battle field, there is also no lack of the sandwich hybrid model, in which the proprietary middle layer (network, transportation and session) are well sitting in between a standard lower layer (physical and data) and open upper layer. WirelessHART's architecture is one of such, where adopted Dust Networks' TSMP is building on IEEE standard 802.15.4. RF4CE is another example on top of IEEE 802.15.4, but here it is the Freescale's proprietary Synkro sitting in the middle.

Do not be fooled by the “politically correct”: to say Bluetooth LE One Size Fits All

2008-08-27T00:33:00.000-07:00

One phrase often heard in recent years is “politically correct” which implies something often has different aspects under the table, behind the scene or in reality. Such as, it is politically correct to criticize the human rights, air pollution, Internet blocking, no free media, Tibet situation before, during and after the Beijing Olympics. Regardless, that event is the most successful Olympic event in history. Period. To add “technically” in front of “successful” could make many people feel better. The US and French presidents were the two most violently criticized China before the opening, neither were absent from the ceremony. These two guys are smart. People can “political correctly” rebuke them of no principle, but they build up and maintain the relationship with China and get business for their country originally belonging to others.

There is a reason to be “politically correct”. For marketing research companies, it is politically correct to offer public results in favor of the sponsors. As marketing research sponsors, it is important to find the marketing problems, but they won’t necessarily want to disclose the issues found to help their competitors. Instead, only “politically correct” information will go public to fool companies not well immunized.

In front of me is the August release of “Connectivity News” from IMS research, a news letter promoting the research reports from this company on different topics. Noted that IMS research has a strong tie with Bluetooth Org. The front page article is “Bluetooth Low Energy Wireless Technology – One Size Fits All” trying to sell the report “The World Market for Bluetooth Low Energy Wireless Technology”. While I am not going to buy this report, here I will tell you why and immunize you if you have bought it and is going to use it to build your business case.

First of all, I hate any misleading statement especially those are done on purpose. I have raised my yellow cards twice to CSR’s press release on their Bluetooth Low Energy demonstration. Here I see again in this IMS article, which says “Bluetooth low energy technology has significant industry backing from … industry associations such as the Continua Health Alliance and of course the Bluetooth SIG”. Continua Health Alliance has selected the classic Bluetooth as part of the version 1 interoperability standard. It has NOT backed the Bluetooth Low Energy. There are in total six technologies in competition to be selected in version 2 standards, ANT, Bluetooth Low Energy, BodyLAN, Sensium, Zigbee and Z-Wave. Bluetooth Low Energy is the only one that is still in lab. All others already have products in the market.

“It is clear that the drivers (for Bluetooth Low Energy) outweigh the barriers” says the report. It is clear that the drivers are common to all the competing technologies and the barriers may be unique to Bluetooth Low Energy! The barriers mentioned in this introduction include unsynchronized roll-out of dual-mode and single-mode ICs, meaning Bluetooth Low Energy equipped cell phones will be in the market without supporting health sensors for a while. You think this is fine? Think again.

The competitors, such as ANT and BodyLAN have sensors, watches and fitness equipments but they do not have cell phones. When Bluetooth Low Energy gets into cell phone, I believe some of the competing technologies will also get into phones in the next 18 months given by Bluetooth Low Energy’s delaying schedule. Both ANT and Zigbee have miniSDIO card available today. They just need to have one step further to be completely embedded into phones..

“It will simply be a case of replacing a classic Bluetooth IC with a dual-mode Bluetooth Low Energy IC…a negligible cost adder” when the introduction comment on the expected volumes used in cell phones. Here you can see the interest conflicts between those dual-mode chip suppliers (such as CSR) and the single mode suppliers, and why they are out of synch. The former is fully-hearted to consolidate their market leadership regardless the cost. It is naïve to believe in there is negligible cost adder. For Bluecore 7 from CSR, there is Flash space well reserved for the code of Bluetooth Low Energy. This is the cost already invested and is demanding to get its market value. The question is not to add negligible cost, but to not waist significant cost.

On the other side, the single mode chip vender will consider cost in comparison not versus classic Bluetooth, but the existing technologies. The complexity of Bluetooth Low Energy will make this solution less competitive. Unlike phones where company as Nokia can implement Bluetooth Low Energy duo-mode chips in volume without worrying much this new feature is in use or not. Each single-mode chip will power a sensor that will be used by a consumer for certain. This is like classic Bluetooth in phone versus in headset. Phone with Bluetooth today only have about 13% attach rate. So the business case for single-mode Bluetooth Low Energy is much harsh. This explains why this is predicted out of synch, which is not because of a technical issue but business concerns.

Be smart and do not be fooled. Otherwise you will lose business

Any Lessons Zigbee can Learn from Bluetooth (4)

2008-08-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Looking for killer application has been the number one task of the alliance for years. There are several good stories in the past year. The most prominent one is Zigbee’s engagement with the AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) or AMR (Automatic Meter Reading) market. Zigbee gives it a nice name smart energy.

The best marketing campaign is through government legislation. Something impossible in free market can just be triggered in such a way. For this particular market in US, it is a combination of things resulting in the critical government move – the US federal enacted two laws the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which outline policies and incentives for developing a smart grid. “The soaring cost of energy, the aging of the electricity grid, national security concerns, and government regulation are creating a boom in smart utility meters and the semiconductors that go into them.”

“Chip companies all charged up over smart meters” authored by Tam Harbert is a good reading for an overall picture of this market niche with many forecast numbers and perspectives from industry leaders and research companies.

This market is so rare that Zigbee can not afford to loss. Some characteristics of AMI or AMR just break the hurdles mentioned in my previous analysis in comparison with Bluetooth. The most critical one is the existence of a clear pulling force, such as the electricity company Southern California Edison who plans to replace 5.3 million standard meters in residential and commercial buildings with AMI systems between 2009 and 2012. There is no consumer involved at this stage, but their houses will be “Zigbeefied” regardless, similar to Bluetooth situation years ago when cell phone companies just equipped with this technology to almost every phone, though with a low rate of usage. Now things start to change, as suddenly headsets become mandatory in many places. When millions of houses are “Zigbeefied”, it will be very natural that consumer products applications will be developed on top of this already setup facility infrastructure, and facility companies will definitely in-turn support the usage of its network as an extra payback of the system. In addition, such AMI infrastructure will be installed, maintained and used by trained professionals.

Now it is all on Zigbee, how this technology can deliver and then how this implementation in several states of US can demonstrate the power of Zigbee and spread the model to the other parts of the world. Most Zigbee members must realize the urgency. “The Zigbee Alliance recently specified a public application profile for smart energy in record time, developing it in about one-fifth the time it usually takes.” Still, unlike Bluetooth, who can work for years to improve features such as the headachy pairing, tolerance for Zigbee is little. This is because the life cycle of the Zigbee powered equipments. Those newly installed meters in 2009 have to work in 2012, and very possibly for another five to ten years before another round of retrofit. The current case that one release of Zigbee can not be backward compatible with previous versions is simply not acceptable. Any mistakes will just open the door to competitors. Eocean, Z-wave, Dust Wireless and many others will take chances without hesitation.

Furthermore, Many semiconductor or IP companies proactively trying to solve the Zigbee business issue in their own way offering solutions based on the same Zigbee Phy and Mac layer 802.15.4, but claim selling points targeting to Zigbee's weaknesses. Ironically, most of these companies are also Zigbee Alliance members. One of the prominent is Freescale, who no even have its own solution, but aggressively penetrate into consumer electronics market, the remote control to be specific, by form another alliance RF4CE. This topic about 802.15.4 derivatives is outside Zigbee.

This is the final part of this long series. Thanks for reading and welcome comments.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Bluetooth Low Energy Technology Demonstration: Progress made but Questions Remained

2008-07-31T15:13:00.000-07:00

Bluetooth lovers acclaimed again early this Month. Bluetooth SIG group, basically Nokia and CSR, did a prototype products demonstration of Bluetooth Low Energy at a deliberately selected venue, the Healthcare Unbound Conference & Exhibition in San Francisco. Actually this presentation is quite successful. A lot media has already covered this event. Here is my observation, hopefully valuable.

The demonstration involved a Nokia phone, a Marsden weight scale and a temperature sensor. I have never heard of Marsden before. Checking google, I found the company is a few blocks away from CSR in Cambridge. Here is the weight scale used in the demo. This weight scale has a serial port that a Bluetooth module is able to tap into. During the demo, people were asked to step on the scale and someone in the display area guess their weight remotely. The module has a 10dBm PA with a dipole antenna. My Nokia friend was able to take the phone and ran away to show the long range to the audiences on the noisy show floor. The temperature sensor was much less interesting. I tend to believe it was an industrial infrared sensor perhaps for food preparation or serving.

To my own opinion, though successful, this demonstration is not as impressive as what ANT did in Luxembourg. (see my blog Witness of ULP Wireless Demonstration) I recently found ANT has published a piece of video of that demo on youtube. (Here is the link.) However, this is a Bluetooth event and their marketing machine is so up on speed to create the buzz – the first on a real phone.

CSR again made a news release and I won’t criticize any misleading in its description of the demonstration. But I am fed up with the bragging tone. In the first paragraph, it says “The Bluetooth SIG expects final adoption of Bluetooth low energy technology in Q1, 2009”. But at the end, “CSR’s BlueCore7 silicon is the world’s first product to integrate Bluetooth low energy technology which it has integrated as part of its connectivity centre and will be in volume production from Q4 2008.” I do not know how CSR can mass produce their BlueCore7 a quarter before the finalization of Bluetooth LE specification. The company must have magic besides its technology.

Anyway this demonstration showed that Bluetooth Low Energy is one step closer. But as any other technologies, there is a long way to go from such a demonstration to commercialization. This is especially true for the case of Bluetooth LE. So, Bluetooth enthusiasts, hold.

Four elements are missing here or are expected for the next scheduled demo in Boston October. The first are the sensors, wearable sensors like heart rate monitor and foot pod, which are two most popular sports sensors. The second is the watch. Without this pivotal part, Bluetooth LE will only be confined to cell phones and has no way to unite the segmented market. The third is single mode Bluetooth LE part from companies like Nordic semiconductor, Epson and TI, which could be the reason why there is no watch and sports sensors in this show. The last piece is how Bluetooth LE to be compatible with classic Bluetooth and in operation simultaneously.

In my close monitoring of ANT+ Alliance, I found both Nordic Semiconductor and TI have joined the alliance. (here is the member list) At least these two leading companies of ultra low power wireless have different view of Bluetooth LE and are not putting their eggs in one basket.

Any Lessons Zigbee can Learn from Bluetooth (3)

2008-07-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4

The fifth and the last point, when network is in place, the use cases are much more friendly to Bluetooth. User interception and user interface play an often under-estimated but very important role in network operation. User interception removes the requirement to the network being intelligent. User interface allows amateurs to be able to setup, troubleshoot, maintain and fix a network.

Most of the Bluetooth devices are linked to equipments with display and buttons operated by a user, like cell phones, PC etc. Bluetooth network is not operated continuously; users intentionally start or end an operation. When something is wrong, the user will notice right away and will try to figure out what goes wrong and fix it in accordance to the hint from the interface and take actions with keypad for example. In the worst case, the user can operate a reboot without sweat.

Most of the Zigbee connections are intended to be purely machine to machine (M2M) often with very limited or no display and buttons, and without human guardians. In addition, the operation of such machine to machine network may be required to run 24 hours a day, 7days a weeks. Often such M2M networks has to be built robust and with features to perform self-healing. It relies on pre-specified conditions and foreseeable failure modes, hardly to be completed to cover all possibilities. When users are finally involved, reboot or recycling the power may be the only choice as no buttons are offered. As no display and few real time usage observation, to figure out the root cause of a machine to machine network failure will often be an exhausting task.

There is also user perception factor. With user operation and interface, the users have a feeling of in control. When such conditions do not present, panic is a natural response. Thinking that you are visiting a unfamiliar place, what is your feeling when it is day time with many people on the streets (so you can ask for directions) vs. when it is dark with nobody to seek help.

Usually, network providers spend a lot of money and add a lot complexity to make a M2M network smart so as to deal with all the imaginable user scenarios. Still they are unlikely to provide a satisfactory operation to the same level for networks with human intervention. How many companies and entrepreneurs have tried Zigbee and were eventually forced to give up and become bubbles.

However, somebody could argue that this is exactly the value of M2M, which people paid for to replace human beings to offer automatic monitor and control. True, but is Zigbee network robust and smart enough to handle all the possible use cases? Are the target users of Zigbee knowledgeable and educated enough to not be panic when system broken but to be reasonable and calm to take steps to resume the operation? There are relatively success wireless solutions, such as Dust Networks (WirelessHart). But Dust Wireless is targeting to industrial users (knowledgeable and educated). And Dust Wireless is expensive (more robust) not for consumers.

In brief of this last point, Bluetooth is for human being but Zigbee is for machines. Too brief. Let me try again, Bluetooth is for machine entertained consumers and Zigbee is for machine informed and relied upon those who are in between consumers and customers.

Let me summarize all the five points to finish the discussion of why Bluetooth is successful and Zigbee has not yet. Point 1, 2 and 3 are about the marketing strategy, without commitment from any strong and leading system integration companies, Zigbee has spent years looking for the proper applications. Being an industrial alliance, in such a case, Zigbee could not be able to focus on one market niche (as Zensys/Z-wave on home or Dust Networks/WirelessHart on industry). Badly, Zigbee has been distracted away from consumer market and away from riding on the tide of any recent popular consumer products. Point 4 discusses the hard to use protocol resulted from the defocused marketing strategy. And the last point further looks inside the use case of Zigbee to identify gaps to the user requirements.

Let’s move on to what to do.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4

Any Lessons Zigbee can Learn from Bluetooth (2)

2008-06-30T09:21:00.000-07:00

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4

The third, in tight association with the previous two points, Bluetooth is able to get to the magic heaven of consumer electronics market, where, no matter it will be in use or not, Bluetooth is a default configuration. Let's see some numbers first. In 2007, 505 million handsets or 47% of total handsets sold worldwide equipped with Bluetooth. At the same time, only 69 million Bluetooth headsets shipped. Headset attach rate, which simply is the ratio of the above two volumes, could be an inaccurate but relative index to indicate how many Bluetooth on a cell phone is actually in use, because it is still the dominate application of Bluetooth. The attach rate of 2007 is 14%. (Because of this fact, I have challenged the success of Bluetooth is somewhat fictitious in my blog "Another Emperor's Clothes - Bluetooth")

Nevertheless, economically Bluetooth is a big success in terms of volume and revenue, which are the only things that those semiconductor companies and patent holders care about. As a side effect, Bluetooth ICs to some extend becomes commodity with huge volume and cheap price. Some companies may say they do not admire such market. Their grapes are really sour.

Lack of strong pull force from system developers and integrators, Zigbee has been driven unfortunately into the complex networking application, where it is hard to identify such a central equipment as cell phone that has many leading vendors in hot competition, and that devices of varies usages can be attached to.

The fourth, when the technology is in implementation, Bluetooth is much easier, simpler and more straight-forward. Bluetooth only supports peer to peer and to its utmost a star network with 7 slave nodes. Bluetooth can be expanded to support “scatter net”, but this kind of application has never got into the core. Zigbee is exactly on the contrary, peer to peer and star network becomes the niche, not in terms of the market needs but the willingness that this technology wants to address. Zigbee is devoted to bigger and more complex topologies consisting of at least 10s to 100s nodes. The result of this difference? Bluetooth is for consumers and Zigbee is for engineers, well-trained ones.

Setting up a Bluetooth network is as easy as making an earpiece talking to a phone. It may take you a bit long time, but comparing to Zigbee, it is still a piece of cake (still, recently in California, some Bestbuy stores charge $10 or more for pairing a headset to a phone). For Zigbee, there is a pivotal step you can not skip, which is called network planning or network infrastructure. Does this sound scary? Looks like setting up a cellular phone network. This is about the network topology, RF scanning, signaling trouble shooting. Companies of Zigbee usually provide hardware and software tools to help you to plan, analysis and maintain such as a network. Set up a Zigbee network requires ambition. (If Bestbuy stores, I do think they are capable, charge for setting a Zigbee network, I guess the price would be $10k or more)

In short, setting up a Zigbee network vs. Bluetooth network, the difference is a project vs. a task.

The cost of this difference is huge for Zigbee, as the complexity will lengthen the learning curve and lead time, add the cost for implementation and maintenance and increase the likelihood of failure.

Actually, at 802.15.4 layer, the widely used star topology is already supported. Zigbee just added some unnecessary complexity.

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4

Any Lessons Zigbee can Learn from Bluetooth

2008-06-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

It took Bluetooth longer than expected time to go through the hype cycle. But, once Bluetooth got into the fast lane, it has never disappointed the industry in terms of volume of shipment. Bluetooth has plenty of reasons to celebrate its ten-year anniversary this year. Zigbee, now suffering an unanticipated low adoption rate, is hoping to repeat a similar curve to its own marketing success. After all, this is only the 6th year of Zigbee. Unlikely, in terms of volume of shipment!

As a comparison, in 2001 its 3rd year, Bluetooth shipped 10 million unit and tripled to 35 million in its 4th year, though these numbers were still well below the forecast. Where is Zigbee at today? Still struggling for its first 10 million. According to ON World report, in 2007, the 5th year of Zigbee, the shipment was 7 million, up from 5 million in 2006. However this is Zigbee and 802.15.4 combined. Zigbee volume could be (I tend to say must be) actually much lower than this number. This is because many 802.15.4 silicon vendors have been forced to launch their own or to support others proprietary protocols for market niches.

Two industrial organizations of technologies based on 802.15.1 and 802.15.4 respectively, two standards of the same IEEE category, what has made their marketing performance such a big different?

First, from the view of supply chain, the two technologies are driven from the opposite end. Bluetooth started from the high end, i.e. the consumer electronics. Bluetooth since the first day has been targeted to solve the problem how people talk over cellular phones hands-free and wire-free. Bluetooth founding members include Ericsson and Nokia, the 1st and 3rd phone manufacturers then; soon joined was the 2nd Motorola. The demands or the pull force was to certain extend guaranteed even at the dark. At the every beginning, although only high end phones had equipped Bluetooth, and although there were usage issues here for there, the shipment volume was enough for the semiconductor suppliers to survive and then have healthy growths. Zigbee, however, started from the other end, the low end. The two convincing founding companies were from the semiconductor section of Philips and Motorola (now Freescale). In its targeting market, home automation, appliance control etc, there was no influential leaders.

When you pull something, the direction is constant no matter how hard it could be. Even today, the number one application of Bluetooth is still cell phones and earpieces. But if you just push, the thing will go to where it is the easiest as a result of compromise of all forces, usually not where you want to go. One problem for Zigbee is the keep-updated specifications without backward compatibility, trying to meet new requirements of suppose new killer applications.

Secondly, the life cycle of products between Bluetooth and Zigbee destines the prosperity of the former and the still of the latter. The longest cellular phone life cycle is found in the "cheap" North America, which is however as short as 2-3 years. In the "luxury" Far East Asia and Europe, the life cycle is 12 to 18 month. This means, after this time, most consumers will upgrade their products. This also means, every this period of time, one or more generations from the same product line would be launched to the market from the same manufacturer. When were you last time to upgrade your light switch or appliance? I bet you it was when they stopped working. As few people would like to upgrade because of the benefit of Zigbee, there were not many people upgrading phone just because of Bluetooth. But they upgraded or replaced their phones any way. This is the culture globally for any "show-off-able" products, cars, phones, cameras, clothes, no exception. How many people show-off their houses (I mean inside features), microwaves, heaters...? Ironically in this story, the "bees" have a longer life, too much longer.

When products life is long, manufacturers and customers both will invest in a technology very carefully. Maturity is demanded esp. for those market leaders; normally they wait and see. While in a market of short life cycle, the leaders would like to respond more actively or even proactively, taking steps to offer new product features to grow their market share and profit margin.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Nordic Semiconductor Sitting on the Fence; ANT+ Solidified

2008-06-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

Nordic Semiconductor formally announced their joining to ANT+ Alliance last Thursday. (here is the announcement) Surprise and no surprise!

Nordic is currently the sole semiconductor supplier of ANT. nRF24AP1 is the only radio chip with ANT protocol embedded and its other radio chips, such as nRF24L01, are also widely used in ANT products. Is it a very natural thing for them to join this alliance? It seems also. But to join stealthily or in high pitch still makes a difference. Remember, Nordic is the founding member of Wibree, now Bluetooth Low Energy technology; and Nordic will be the major vendor of the standalone device of Bluetooth Low Energy (while CSR is the major vendor of dual mode device) Wibree was launched by Nokia in Oct 2006 and its first release of specification has slipped to Q2 next year.

What I believe behind this story is the fierce competition in between ANT and Bluetooth Low Energy, as well as Nordic's adjustment of its marketing strategy. Admitted publicly or not, Bluetooth Low Energy takes ANT as the top competing technology. I was in an industrial show, probably ESC last spring. I was bragged by the ANT booth guy that Nokia was one of the bidder to acquire Dynastream, the company that develops ANT, but Nokia lost the game to Garmin and so after that they found Wibree. Garmin's acquisition of Dynastream was announced end of 2006. So if you correlate the two dates, this story sounds close to real. Anyway, it is uncontroversial that ANT and Bluetooth Low Energy are running head to head.

I see this event an indication of the tough situation of the Bluetooth Low Energy. The specification release has been delayed twice to now Q2 2009. It is currently at version 0.5. Its name change from ULP (ultra low power) to Low Energy, likely Bluetooth Low Energy's biggest announcement this year is confusing and does not make any marketing sense. Sure there are phenomenal marketing activities, but without solid technology progress, it will only turn out to be hypes.

On the other side, ANT have made considerable progress in forming the ANT+ alliance. The first announcement is when the ANT+Sport member list hit 43 in March 6. In this news release from Nordic, we can see the expansion of ANT+Sport to ANT+, a smooth brand transition, that extends from sports to health and home applications. I also notice ANT+ has now 70 member companies, a quite significant growing speed. The member list is hidden in its simple website. An interesting note there is "not all members are listed per request". It lets me think of some big fish.

What If Single Frequency

2008-06-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I praised the move of GE Health lobbying FCC for a dedicated freq band for body area network (BAN) that requires ultra low power, low cost, privacy etc. Here I'd like to take a detailed look of the benefits that single frequency operation will bring to wireless sensor networking.

1. No need to worry about frequency jam. Frequency hopping scheme and the related strict synchronization are largely unnecessary. The protocol will then mainly deal with cross-talking and peer network co- existing. This is a save of about 10k code just for a point to point connection.

2. Because of fixed frequency, TDMA kind of channelization would become one of the few options, which is relatively easy and does not demand much computation. Low cost MCU could be used.

3. Network topology can be more flexible and easy to achieve. Searching a network and establish a link would become easy and fast. Robustness can be guaranteed to certain extend simply by data acknowledgment and resending.

4. RF design and signal filtering can be optimized to that particular narrow band, simplifying the design and saving a lot hardware cost.

Many proprietary protocols serving a market niche, , like ANT, Z-Wave and the Nordic Semiconductor's wireless desktop, some even in the 2.4GHz crowded band, realize what is "good enough" and what can be traded-off through their own practice and through learning lessons from its competition standards. These solutions, though have frequency agility, are not build it in their chips, but offered through reference designs or application notes. They all have achieved better marketing performance.

Ultra-Low-Power Body Area Network Deserves a Dedicated Band

2008-05-23T15:54:00.000-07:00

When you take a detailed look at those low power or ultra low power wireless solutions, inevitably you find that, for each of the solutions, a lot of efforts has been put on inference avoidance, because they all work on ISM license-free band. Bluetooth uses FHSS and has adaptive frequency hopping to avoid Wi-Fi. Zigbee implements DSSS as well as frequency hopping. But still, Z-Wave issued a white paper attacking Zigbee with tables and charts showing its poor performance under wi-fi, esp. 802.11n. And how about Z-Wave? it runs on 900 MHz to get away from Wi-Fi. Three months later, Zigbee had to issue its own whiter paper to proves its robustness. Similar things go on and on in this industry.

How much energy and cost will be saved if all of these complicated interference avoidance schemes are completely avoided? Should be tremendous!

The history is always advancing in a spiral pattern. Decades ago, the FCC free-up of ISM band aroused the so many wireless innovations that we enjoy most of the time today. It may be the time to ask for regulation again when wireless applications go deeper into our life and body, and we start to suffer.

GE Healthcare has taken the lead by filing a proposal licensed frequencies for a new, medical body sensor network radio service. FCC has responded positively

"Responding to the call for comments in the NOI, GEHC [GE Healthcare] proposes the allocation of spectrum on a secondary basis in the 2360-2400 MHz band and for the adoption of service rules under Part 95 for the operation of wireless medical ‘body sensor networks’ - or BSNs. As described by GEHC, Wireless BSN sensors would be used to replace the present generation of physiological body sensors (often used with patients in hospitals, for example) that rely upon wired cables connected to bedside monitoring equipment. GEHC states that a key benefit of eliminating the wired link with wireless BSN technology would be to reduce the chances of body sensors becoming unintentionally disconnected, thereby enhancing the safety, quality and mobility of patient care. GEHC thus requests that the Commission issue a further rule making notice in order to consider its proposal.

Although the GEHC submission is styled as an ex parte comment, we conclude that it provides sufficient basis to be treated as a petition for rule making under Section 1.401 of the Commission’s rules. Among other factors, it sets forth a comprehensive proposal for a new allocation in a specific frequency band and for service rules for a new Medical Body Area Network Service under Part 95, issues that are not presently under consideration in the MedRadio Proceeding. Thus, in order for the Commission to determine if there are sufficient reasons for instituting a rule making proceeding, we are treating the GEHC ex parte filing as a petition for rule making and seek comment on GEHC’s request.”

Here is a summary from GE Healthcare.

When Master Becomes Slave and Slave Becomes Master

2008-05-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

One of the painful things of Bluetooth Low Energy (Wibree, Bluetooth ULP) is the fighting between handsets and watches.

In the initial presentations, a Bluetooth LE system always centered on a cellphone, with the watch joining heart rate monitor and other sensors as the phone accessories. The watch displays what the cell phone tells it to display. So that system can not be without cell phone.

Of course, this model is challenged by a lot of watch centered systems already in the market. Some of the products are manufactured by the Wibree founding members, such as Suuto and Polar. Even for other watch companies, do you think they are happy to see their watch LCD displays a Nokia logo?

In the reality of a body area network(BAN), where wearable sensors and devices are around the body, both watch and handheld can be the hub to display, store and compute data. Either has its own advantages and can not be replaced by the other. "Your wrist is your beach front property", the marketing message from a watch company is so true.

So the fighting inside the Bluetooth LE SIG ground is an easy guess-out. The SIG group has been trying hard to satisfy this use case to allow the watch to be master and operate the BAN standalone. A piece of information tells that the SIG is talking about master ownership transferring in between the phone and the watch. I am inclining to believe this is true, because the frequency hopping and synchronization nature of the Bluetooth network does not allow multiple masters taking control at the same time. Transferring the master ownership seems to be the only viable approach. This is the price Bluetooth LE has to pay to be co-existing and compatible with Bluetooth.

How hard could it be? The current Bluetooth LE stack size is targeting at 90k, and the hardware manufacturers are worrying about the 128k limit could be soon reached.

However, this master-slave conversion approach still can not quite match what the proprietary solutions in the market can do today, for example, the group monitoring use case, where a phone or laptop is talking to multiple watches which in turn are the hubs for sensors on different bodies.

A User's Experiences of Z-Wave

2008-05-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

Japi’s blog » Blog Archive » Home automation, or when laziness and geekiness collide.

Japi's post is earlier than my "use case flaw in Zigbee and Z-Wave", but I just cross it today. Though it is basically a positive story of Z-Wave (over Zigbee), it provides first hand proof to some of my points in my post, difficulty to setup and reliability. User interface issue is something implied. From the blog, I can easily assume that this system is only used by Japi himself.

I like the title.It is right on the point and hilarious. I wish I could use it for my post.

Here is Japi's post:

In the past I have attempted to control some key lights in my house using X10, which is a standard for home automation (HA) using control signals over your power lines. In theory it should work well, just toss a signal down the AC line on top of the regular 60Hz power signal, and have devices receive it. It is fairly cheap to implement (with modules/switches costing about $13-$32), has well-documented computer interfaces (which are also reasonably priced), but it fails miserably in my house. I have about 50 CFL bulbs inside and outside for lighting which add noise to the power lines, and have computers, UPSes, and pumps that also cause signaling problems. And to top it all off, with standard 220V US power systems, you have two separate power lines coming from the electrical company transformer (located on a pole outside my house), and the signals don’t easily transition from one power line to the other (needing to go out to the transformer to make the jump). All of this combines to create a system that is very unreliable, and since X10 is a rather old standard that doesn’t support message delivery confirmation, it makes computer-based automation rather annoying.

Since the X10 network is not working, I researched what newer standards are available to perform the same work. There are four newer, much better home automation methods now: Insteon, UPB, Z-Wave, and ZigBee. ZigBee (an RF-based mesh network, also known as 802.15.4) has almost no devices available for consumer use at this point. Insteon is a standard promoted by Smarthome, and uses the powerline for communication like X10, but devices act as repeaters to boast signal strength, and it has confirmation support for much greater reliability. It costs a bit more then X10, and has documented computer interfaces available. But, you still need to get a bridge to join the two power lines for whole-house signal reliability (and this adds significant cost to the setup), and can still have noise problems. UPB (Universal Powerline Bus) is another standard over the powerline, supposedly even more reliable then Insteon, but still not 100% perfect, still needs a bridge, and the devices are fairly expensive ($70-$125 for modules). The last standard is the one I am going with for now: Z-Wave. Z-Wave is a mostly proprietary design from Zensys, using RF mesh radios that they manufacture. Other vendors sell the actual consumer devices (including Cooper, Leviton, and Intermatic), prices are a bit on the high side ($30-$100), but you can find devices on ebay occasionally at better prices. Computer interfaces are a pain, most of them are for Windows use, using a .NET SDK, which doesn’t help me since I run Linux on my server. There is a Leviton serial interface (RZC0P) that does have documentation that I am working on developing Linux support for.

Z-Wave is a RF mesh protocol, meaning the commands are sent over a wireless network (908.42 Mhz in the USA, different frequencies are used in other regions), and the commands get routed through multiple nodes to get to the final destination, if it is not within direct range from the sender. It supports message delivery confirmation, and status checking of all devices. This means if I send a signal from the computer interface in my basement to the pond outside, it probably hops first to a module on my aquarium, then a module in my sunroom, then out to the pond. So far it seems to be working pretty good, with the pond being the only module that is difficult to reach (about a 10% failure rate at this point without tweaking). The problem from the pond appears to be return messages, if I send it a “turn lights on” message, occasionally the light will turn on, but I will get a “failed” response on the controller, presumably because the “success” response from the pond didn’t make it all the way back. But I can just query the status of the module, and generally that does pass.

The routes are all statically defined as devices are added to the network. Z-Wave has a concept of a “primary controller”, which is the remote control you use to set up the network. You walk around with this fancy remote control, and when you want to add or remove a device from the network, you do it on this remote (I am using a Leviton RZCPG-BSG). When the device is added/removed, the remote updates it’s internal list of known nodes and determines the best routes to that device from the other nodes, and tells the other nodes the routes it has calculated. If you want to use additional remote controls, then those are “secondary controllers”, which can’t do route generation, but instead just send control signals out across the network (”Turn on aquarium light”, etc). Adding a node to the primary controller doesn’t immediately make it controllable, you have to add it to an “area”, and then you can press buttons on the remote to make your lights go on/off and annoy the neighbors. The same needs to be done on any secondary remotes that you have, with different button assignments if you so desire.

So far my network is small (due to the cost of modules, and since I am just testing). Right now I am using it for controlling the lights in my pond (which I only want on when I am around the pond, extra light just promotes algae growth that I don’t need), and the light on my main aquarium (which will be controlled by the computer interface once the software is done, to turn the lights on in the morning, but I will be able to easily turn them on/off at other times when I want). There are some outdoor lights that I would also like to control (patio light, front lights, garage light), but still need to find cheap modules for the switches. Initially testing indicates that all of this will work much better then X10, and I get to play with new software/hardware too.

Any Flaws in the Home Automation Use Cases and Models for Z-Wave and Zigbee?

2008-05-08T15:59:00.000-07:00

Though weeks old, this piece of news has kept pushing me to throw out some of my pre-mature thoughts on WSN applications in homes.

The news release is about some top companies teaming up together to study the state and future of smart home. "The smart home is defined as a home where the systems (security, lighting, sensors, heating, air-conditioning, audio-video, etc.) are interconnected to allow the automatic or remote control of the home to save energy and improve comfort, safety and convenience for the homeowner." The ten companies are Whirlpool Corporation, Bell Canada, Cisco, Direct Energy, HP, Legrand, Leviton, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Zensys as well as the Z-Wave Alliance.

Whirlpool, Bell Canada, Cisco, HP, Microsoft, P&G and Others Announce Collaboration to Advance the Connected Home Space

It is great to see companies possibly cover the entire value chain and supply chain getting together (to pay for this study). These companies are eagerly looking for answers to get out the "trough of disillusionment" and move to the "slope of enlightenment" of the smart home hype cycle.

Per my personal experiences, the value of the report will largely depend on the design of the survey and I am not positive to any consumer studies based on “what do you think” type of questions on applications still in vapor. If I were these companies, I would just use the report to prove the answers that are already in my mind and challenge those disagree. And the answers in my mind are from my observation on how people live everyday and troubles they have to deal with often. I also trust my own imagination since I know what can be done and how will be done the next.

Here is a rule of thumb: A solution will only prevail if this solution provides values that few others can provide.

Let's take a look of the four potential applications mentioned in this new release to see if they can prevail.

- When the phone rings, the caller ID shows up on a television screen. ---- leave this application to those who watch TV a lot, unless the phone is on top of the TV. Will the phone ring

- The home's temperature can be controlled remotely, allowing the homeowner to save on energy costs by adjusting the home's temperature according to changing weather conditions. ----- Automatic control is cheaper and easier. If you want to make it complex, a hub with complex algorithm receiving temperatures from multiple rooms will do the job per room better than the home owner. Fundamentally those who are currently in the home should control. The homeowner may not know if there are people in home or not.

- Multiple rooms in a home can be video-monitored via the Internet from anywhere in the world ----- good idea, but only when I am the monitor, not the "monitoree". This application has niches such as home based prison, remote managed office etc. This application could also be an alert triggered home security feature, which of course has cheaper alternatives.

- A homeowner can adjust the home's lighting remotely, allowing travelers to give the home a "lived-in" feel ---- Again automatic control is cheaper and easier. And human conversation and pet barking can be simulated automatically. When I am in travel in HongKong, should I remember at noon to turn on the living room light in my home in LA?

Personally, besides energy saving and security, I have not seen any generic applications that meet the rule of no or few alternatives. I am not saying there are no cool applications that will find their own niches. There could be a lot such applications like mentioned above. But they won’t justify the investment by big companies.

To further worsens the business case of Zigbee and Z-wave, have you seen any wireless elements in the above applications? Few and not necessarily required. First there are few popular home applications; and then for the few, the wireless solution is only one of the options.

Let’s analyze a use case to examine in-depth the possible issues for WSN in home. BTW, this is a very popular use case. Either Zigbee or Z-wave makes a flash to show it on their website. The case is to turn on the bedroom light while you are in the garage. Let imagine,

You get out of your car and you want to turn on the bedroom light. (I think I want to turn on my garage light first.) You need to find the remote control (ah, it is a fixed switch on the wall. How about this, your cell phone? So you can operate anywhere) and switch it to ON. (if you use a phone, you need to find the icon among many other controllable items for your bedroom light after your fumbling many pages to locate application menu. Your IQ need to be high enough in order to have a shortened learning curve.) This signal "1" goes to the garage door sensor, then the kitchen light switch, then the living room light and finally it reaches the bed room. (We all own big houses in North America, aren’t' we?) When you get to the bed room, the light is ON already as you expect and you feel so cool. If it is not on (come on, glitches are allowed. It is wireless. We all know that), then you find the switch on the wall (it is always there) and simply you turn it on, though you feel not so cool. Now you run back to the garage, because you have an insurmountable impulse to figure out what goes wrong.

The technology is cool, and you are a nerd!

Ask yourself if you really need to turn on the bedroom light from the garage. (Cool!) Ask yourself again if you want to pay $500 to make it. (Cold!)

Wireless can not guarantee 100% reliable communication. Zigbee and Z-wave both can do mesh to boost the reliability to certain satisfactory degree. For example, if the "1" can not go through from the kitchen to the living room, it will be via another route from the wash room. This sounds much easier than implementation. In reality, for normal consumers without sophisticated equipment, this is a process of trial-and-fail steps unique to every home. You need to be a knowledgeable homeowner. You need to plan the signal path or even the topology. You need to test if signal in bed room can be reliably received in living room. You need to decide if you need a node to perform as coordinator…

However, anyway, whatsoever, you have set up such a network. But you forget, you have to live alone just by yourselves. Why? You get home late, you turn on the bed room light while you are in garage but only find that you beloved the other half is angry that you badly disturb his or her sleep. The bedroom light get confused just as you do when you report to two bosses.

The user interface and psychological issues for home applications is a huge one that has not been studied thoroughly. Basically, to control something out of sight is something uncomfortable for both who control (not sure if it has happened) and those who are in where is under control (not sure what has happened). People tend to see the feedback right away. People tend to deal with situations that are simple and direct, by instinct and no need to learn.

In short, wireless sensor network for home use have the following inherent issues that destine its limit success:
1. wired alternatives exist, cheaper, straight and reliable.
2. complex mesh is required for reliability for "real remote" control, but costly and hard to install
3. Home is a dynamic living area. To control things out-of-sight will cause unease, confusion and many other psychological frustrations.
4. For Zigbee and Z-Wave, who offer over-killed mesh features, direct remote control can be easily taken over by other wireless technologies, simpler and cheaper.

Welcome argument. But my above points have been proven by the low adoptive rate and current situation of both Zigbee and Z-Wave. Zigbee is an infrastructure-oriented protocol (I first heard this term from my friend in Chipcon, now Texas Instrument). You hardly find it in consumer home applications, but it seems get momentum in building automation and AMR (Automatic Meter Reading) where can show-off its strength. Z-Wave is much easier to implement, so you see many home-used remote control applications for light and appliance that do not need an infrastructure, but a simple star or peer to peer network, no more complex than a home Wi-Fi.

Further Thoughts on the New Name - Bluetooth Low Energy

2008-04-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

One of my colleague was in the Bluetooth Sports & Fitness Day this Monday. I can not wait to chat with him but search the internet for any information. I got this one I4U News - Bluetooth Low Energy, but what most interests me is the comment on the name.

"Bluetooth Low Energy needs a better name. It needs to be shorter and low energy has dual meaning. It also means something negative like in having low energy. Let us either call it Bluetooth LE or how about “Greentooth” or something completely different?"

I expressed some of my initial responses to the change in my last blog. I am definitely not the only one that feels the awkwardness. On my second thoughts, from marketing point of view, "Low Energy" does not bring in any benefit, rather further confusion, as mentioned by I4U News. There is no explanation from any marketing sense for Bluetooth to give up ULP. I can only seek reasons from technical point of view that more features added make this protocol unable to commit to ultra low power. The name change is just a corner of the iceberg.

I reviewed the presentations of Bluetooth meeting of last Oct. Here are some interesting points that was promoted by guys like Robin Heydon of CSR and many others. I won't say Bluetooth Low Energy is off the track now, but I think it is time for the core team to review these points again.

“Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.” – Albert Einstein

"RFC1925
(1) It Has To Work.
(5) It is always possible to agglutinate multiple separate problems into a single complex interdependent solution. In most cases this is a bad idea.
(7a) Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two (you can't have all three).
(10) One size never fits all.
(12) In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

"KIDS - Keep It Damn Simple"

Will Bluetooth ULP deliver?

2008-04-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, while I was writing this blog, I wanted to confirm some facts from Bluetooth website. Only I found astonishingly that Bluetooth ULP changed name to "Low Energy". I was astonished because:

1. Though ULP is not firstly created by Bluetooth, but some other proprietary solutions, it is now well owned by Bluetooth.
2. The term "ultra" has been taken out . What does this imply? Does this mean that Bluetooth LE can not commit the low current consumption not even close to its competitors?

Now back to my blog. I will, the last time, still call the technology Bluetooth ULP.

I always doubt if Bluetooth ULP or Wibree can deliver its promises without compromises, since it is announced. The fundamental reason, there is nothing free. You have to pay the price for ........... being compatible with classic Bluetooth. The situation could be even harsh for ULP, because ULP not only means ultra-low-power, but also implies low cost, small memory size, easy to implement and etc. The kept delayed schedule of Bluetooth ULP specification just reflects it is not an easy task to achieve them all.

Back to last Oct, in a Bluetooth conference in London, the SIG group members were arguing publicly if Bluetooth ULP should be focused on providing ultra low power wireless connection or should also consider functions like scatter net.

The answer I collected recently shows that Bluetooth ULP is going to support scatter net. The single mode will be able to work as both master and slave. This means that the watch can operate with sensors without the existence of a phone. This was not the case back to last year, where the watch can not talk to sensors directly but via the phone which is the master. It is also affirmed that the star network can hold much more nodes only limited by the hardware. I heard up to 64 nodes, but I am not sure.

I believe all the above is actually driven by those SIG members who are currently using proprietary solutions like ANT, which can deliver these functions today.

Further more, from the presentation that Robin Heydon of CSR gave in Continua Health Alliance summit, Bluetooth ULP supports industrial level security and privacy and many other attractive features without additional cost.

No doubt, if everything becomes true, Bluetooth ULP will win the competition and unite the fragmented market. But with everything about Bluetooth ULP not even publicly on paper, we have tons of reason to doubt.

There is no secrete to be ultra-low-power,
1. you turn on the radio as less as possible
2. you do things as fast as you can when you are on
3. you do things that are only necessary

If you do everything, you are nothing in terms of ultra-low-power.

Witness of ULP Wireless Demonstration

2008-04-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

I was on the road for a whole week and did not have time to check those "Google alerts" I set to monitor the industry until today. For the key word "ULP Bluetooth", I was surprised to see how many misleading or completely distorted news and comments are flowing around the internet and blogs.

NO, there is NO debut of ULP Bluetooth headset; there is NO demonstration of ULP Bluetooth connecting 50 times faster.

I have to admit that the CSR marketing team has done a great job writing such a glorious story for such a small event. No other companies participating the event has done so.

The original CSR's news release is here, the origin of all misleading information, though technically correct.
http://www.csr.com/pr/pr330.htm

Simply put, ULP Bluetooth has no way to be 50 times faster in data communication. What CSR is saying in the release is that for a small sensor data packet, from establishing the link to transmitting the packet, ULP is 50 times faster than classic Bluetooth. A sensor data packet is several bytes. That is all.

I was in the demonstration witnessing everything. It was the informal ultra-low-power wireless solution demonstration of Continua Health Alliance Spring submit in the morning of April 13 in Luxembourg. Three companies / Organizations participated, ANT+, Bluetooth ULP (CSR), Zigbee (Philips, TI and Motorola)

In my mind, the Bluetooth ULP demo is the least impressive and the most preliminary. Here was the demonstration layout: on the right side of a 4' x 2' table was a laptop with its wi-fi streaming a live Malathon racing. one foot away were two PCBA modules with a foot apart. Each module was connecting to a laptop respectively and the testing application on the laptop showing data communication in between the two modules. Each of the two identical PCBA modules is about 4''x6'' in size. One chip on the board was said the Bluetooth IC. Robin of CSR was there and keep saying "see, it works". So that was the demonstration, Bluetooth ULP worked in a close proximity of Wi-Fi.

But the other other domontrated technology also worked very well. And they were within 3-4 meters from the streaming wi-fi.

The next day during the presentation session, Robin said the modules were running on version 0.5 of Bluetooth ULP, which was internally released last Oct if my source of information is reliable.

On the other side, both Zigbee and ANT demonstrated real product and applications. Zigbee showcased a weight scale and blood pressure monitor linking to a mobile phone while Zigbee routers. ANT demonstration targeted to two sectors. On one table, they showcased a bunch of commercial products, including a weight management system from Beurer (including a weight scale, a watch, a heart rate monitor and a foot pod) and Garmin products. ANT also showoffed their miniSDIO card with a Motorola Q phone wirelessly receiving data from a pulse-oximeter. On another table, they demonstrated a home automation topology consisting of about 10-15 all kind of sensors and several relays (all prototypes) . A laptop running with a beautiful GUI worked as the control panel.

ANT+Sport Alliance Member List

2008-04-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

I have been looking for ANT+Sport alliance member list for a while. Finally a friend of mine share this picture with me that he took on CES show early Jan of this year. I do not know why to get this list requires so much efforts. Even on their website, I can hardly find any useful information regarding ANT+Sport alliance, except for the news release on Mar 6th claiming 43 members. It looks like ANT is still playing a low-key game, even though they have a strong Garmin in the back.

If you feel difficult to read the picture, here are the companies:

Commercial Members (shipping/announced now)
Garmin, Trek, Bell Blackburn, VDO Cyclecomputing, Ciclosport, Quarq, iBike, Saris, SRM, Beurer, Cosmed, Concept 2 Rowing

Partners in Early Development (shipping soon)
timex, Acumen-Vetta, Zephyr, Team Fain HK, Nielsen Kellerman, IN2 Rowing, WEBA Sport, New Leaf, Ammaxon, Falcom, Lifechek

3rd Party Developers
Dayton Ltd HK, IDT International Limited, Xelic Inc USA, Microprocessor Designs USA, Sage Consultants Australia, Tecscience AG Germany, Latitude Ltd. HK, Professional Design Partners USA, A Kean Design USA, Sportrac Netherlands, Cortex Biophysik Germany, Artis LLC USA, Blatand Germany, Sustact Netherlands, Direction Technologists TW, Spark HK, ATech HK, Tara Systems Germany, Magin Pty Australia

There are 42 members on this picture.

Ultra-low power wireless: Definition and Technologies

2008-04-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

This fresh article from Jack Shandle (see link below) provides a general overview of the use of ultra low power wireless in sports and fitness market. I tend to believe it represents a great deal of views from Nordic semiconductor. This has nothing wrong and should represent the majority view of the upfront players in this market, because Nordic is a leader in ultra low power wireless, who has its own solution for PC peripherals and solution using ANT for sports. Nordic is also a key member of Wibree SIG who is the relied on for the single mode Bluetooth/ULP chip.

Here is the Nordic definition of ultra low power wireless:

"Nordic bases its ULP definition on available battery power: ULP means the body PAN can run for a year or more on a single watch battery. It specifically refers to the CR 2032 coin cell. Translated into numbers, this means: (1) a capacity of 180mAh to be consumed over a year or more (average current of approximately 20μ A); and, (2) a peak current of just 20 mA because stressing the battery's instantaneous current draw damages the battery and reduces the total charge available."

Of course, this is for today. With the progress of battery technology (which is really slow though) and energy scavenging, some may think that ULP definition will also be more and more generous, which means the differences between this or that technology on the current consumption may not be that significant and some technologies that is not suitable for an application today may be able to get into the market tomorrow. But I believe that the human avid nature of "doing more with less" will rule the future and the destiny will be in favor of the technology that can do so and new application will be emerged to raise even harsher requirement of ultra-low-power.

The article also discloses the progress of Bluetooth/ULP, which I have not seen for a while. I still remember that when Wibree merged into Bluetooth, Dr. Mike Foley said "Specification is expected to be ready during first half of 2008." This updated info pours cold water to those Bluetooth/ULP hypes.

"This is well underway at the Bluetooth SIG where its ULP Bluetooth spec will be ready sometime in mid-2009, according to Executive Director Mike Foley."

Ultra-low power wireless PANs that monitor sports and fitness performance sprint into the fast lane | Wireless Net DesignLine

ANT vs. Zigbee ???

2008-04-02T05:52:00.000-07:00

This article in the name of Rod Morris, engineering manager of ANT, is by far the most detailed published description of ANT.
http://www.wirelessnetdesignline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206801554

But I tend to think this article had been in the publisher's pipe line for a long time before its reappearance, because the tone and competing target of Zigbee are completely different from what ANT's recent movement.

The article does not disclose too much of technical details on "how", but it still shows some thoughts that are very interesting,

"There are technologies where all nodes are identical and therefore equally capable of acting as "slaves" or "masters" within a practical network and swapping roles at any time. In such a network, nodes can act as transmitters, receivers or transceivers to route traffic to other nodes and can leave or join the network in an ad hoc fashion. In addition, every node is capable of determining the best time to transmit based on the activity of its neighbours, so no special "coordinator" (such as ZigBee's ZC) or "router" (ZR) node is required."

Back to my previous point

I do not think the comparison with Zigbee is proper though and is the up-to-date market strategy of ANT , as Zigbee is now targeting to a different market niche, where ANT is not very strong at, at least in terms of the number of products in the market. ANT may be very easy to make a sensor go wireless, but to make a network is a story on another level. Zigbee could be overkill in simple network topology, but it should find its way in market that needs "infrastructure".

I see a strong push of ANT in the sport and health market instead, therefore the suitable competing target should be Bluetooth ULP. Another reason for this article like this is maybe Bluetooth ULP is still in vapor and no way to compare.

The article also seems against both standard and proprietary, though ANT itself is a proprietary protocol. To this point, this sounds contradictions and nonsense.

"Avoid the compromise

By adhering to a strict standard, ZigBee operates satisfactorily in the defined sectors for which it was conceived and designed. It meets that objective of interoperability. However, standards-based technologies are rarely the optimum engineering solution because they are subject to compromises.

Chief among these are the attempts by the ratification bodies to ensure the standards satisfy all interested parties (rather than meeting the specific needs of end applications). In the case of ZigBee the compromise manifests itself as additions to the protocol to cover rare implementations. The net result is delayed release, lower efficiency, increased power consumption and increased costs.

ANT is a superior protocol to ZigBee for many ultra-low power practical wireless networking applications where interoperability is not essential. With the world becoming increasingly wireless—and design requirements for wireless links becoming more exacting - many designers may well look beyond the standard when specifying the WSN communications protocol in their next product or application."

It may reflects ANT internal struggle, which is on one side, ANT wants to keep its proprietary nature with its focused technology focus; on the other side, ANT wants to separate itself from other proprietary protocols.

The recent marketing move of ANT+Sport proves that ANT is matching with Z-wave in that an open standardized application layer is on top of a proprietary lower protocol layer to form a hybrid standard.

ANT+Sport - an Alliance has 43 members

2008-03-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

Again, stealthily ANT achieved something big. ANT+Sport is an alliance and has more than 43 members, including Garmin, Timex, SRM, Trek, Beurer and Quarq.

It was announced Mar 6th, but nowhere to be seen except on their website. I feel pity for ANT as this is a really milestone comparing to the "vapors" and hypes around Wibree. Certainly, you can not compare this with the more than 1000 members of Bluetooth, but measuring by the marketing effort, awareness and budget vs. the achievement, it is still quite amazing. When did I first hear about ANT+Sport or even ANT? Not more than a year. There must be something in this technology that makes it today. This something is truly for products and solutions, not for the media.

Unfortunately, I failed to search out a full member list by Google.

Low Power Consumption Connectivity of Adidas and Samsung's SGH-F110 miCoach

2008-03-08T06:51:00.000-08:00

The announcement of Adidas and Samsung's miCoach phone SGH-F110 has created more noises in the market though it is two weeks later than ANT's miniSDIO solution. One reason is for sure because of the two top consumer brands, and the second would be the completeness of the solution, from sensors, phones to web service. However, the advantage is also the disadvantage, as the solution is tied to one phone and single service provider without interoperability. Choices is an important feature in today's consumer market, unless the product is so outstanding from competitors, as iPod vs. other MP3 players. I do not see this solution has iPod's kind of "charisma".

Enough for marketing, now let's turn to the technology for the low power connectivity. This story again proves that Wibree or Bluetooth ULP is late to the market. While the specification is still in draft in the closed cabinet, some companies already lose their patience. While before this case is the Nike + iPod solution.

I am more curious about what the real technology is used for the low power connectivity. Here is my guess, it is a proprietary protocol on top of 802.15.4. Why:

1. It is not any public standard like Bluetooth or Zigbee, otherwise it will be listed.
2. It is not Zigbee also because the heart rate monitor and foot pod have a long battery life on coin cell,
3. Korean like Zigbee somehow. I believe Samsung has a lot of experiences. This is also the reason I exclude ANT as an option.
4. Many 802.15.4 based proprietary protocols have claimed to be able powered by coin cell

No One Can Deliver All

2008-02-29T14:28:00.000-08:00

Sherif Hanna of Cypress Semiconductor published an article on wireless design line. This is by far the best and unbiased analysis, in my eyes, of the home and industrial control sector of wireless sensor network. It analyzes the causes of the hype around wireless sensor network, in his term, embedded control (WiEC). For many of his points, I can not agree more.

"The promises varied in their boldness and scope. But some key terms were used by all WiEC technology promoters, almost without exception, to describe their offerings: low power, low cost, high reliability, high security, ease of design-in, and ease of use."

"There are several reasons for the failure to deliver on all those promises (though some were indeed fulfilled). The first is that some target performance goals are fundamentally opposed to one another, and provide formidable engineering challenges. Consider low cost versus high reliability."

"Slimming down the network stack would likely mean that intelligent features like complete node-to-node routing and network self-healing have to go."

After the statement "The new thinking addresses the fundamental flaw in the hype: A single technology cannot solve all problems equally well. But, it may solve a subset of problems extremely well.". Sherif gives his review on different technologies and their fine tuned marketing niches, such as ZigBee in AMI (Automated Metering Infrastructure) and building automation, WirelssHart in process control, Z-wave in home automation.

He points out that Zigbee has "less talk now about consumer applications (where low cost needs make ZigBee less competitive than other technologies) and process automation (where higher reliability and stronger security are needed)." Those two markets are left to Z-wave and WirelessHart.

Both Zigbee and WirelessHart on based on the same PHY. "It turns out that 15.4 is a good transceiver and MAC technology to use for several applications, as long as the network protocol on running on top is fine-tuned to each application."

Sherif then discloses Cypress' high level marketing strategy.
" The good news for designers is that many silicon vendors offer IEEE 802.15.4-compliant solutions, which will eventually mean lower costs and higher performance as the competition heats up. The good news for the silicon vendors is that whether or not a particular protocol like ZigBee or WirelessHART wins, the underlying transceiver is the same, and thus they have a chance to recuperate their investments. This has been one bright spot in the highly fragmented wireless market.

For consumer market (consumer installed home used) to reach millions of units in shipping volumes, "this would only happen if each of the nodes cost the consumer under $5, and they were able to install it in their home unassisted."

I am glad to see my assumption of $5 per node cost (see my blog "average 40 nodes per home") get a resonance here. And the unassisted installation is why ZigBee can not win home automation market.

Enjoy Sherif's article,

Embedded.com - The embedded wireless promise: Where do we stand?

The embedded wireless promise: Where do we stand?

ZigBEE ANT, Z-Wave, INSTEON, Wavenis, and WirelessHART all have a share of the wireless embedded control market but there is no clear winner. This article attempts to explain why.

By Sherif Hanna, Cypress Semiconductor

Wireless Net DesignLine

(02/13/08, 04:54:00 PM EST)

The ZigBee specification just turned three in December 2007. ZigBee has come a long way since 2004, becoming more mature, better defined, and more focused. The milestone provides an interesting opportunity to reflect not just on the state of the ZigBee standard, but on the state of wireless embedded control (WiEC) technologies in general.

Promoters of the competing WiEC technologies have promised many things to design engineers over the past few years, and the question should be asked: where do we stand?

First, a definition of what qualifies as a WiEC technology should be given. At the transceiver level, they are low power radios that typically have a range between 10m and 50m, data rates under 4Mbps, and operate in any of several Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) frequency bands.

Network protocols used to control communication between the wireless nodes range from simple point-to-point topologies for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, through star topologies for basic wireless sensor networks (WSN), to advanced self-healing mesh networks, where all nodes are able to communicate with each other.

Any design engineer who has spent sufficient time in the embedded space is likely familiar with the promises that the promoters of WiEC technologies have made.

The promises varied in their boldness and scope. But some key terms were used by all WiEC technology promoters, almost without exception, to describe their offerings: low power, low cost, high reliability, high security, ease of design-in, and ease of use.

Along with the technical promises came bold forecasts of rapid returns on investment to all involved—the vendors would sell hundreds of millions of units within a few short years, customers would realize increased efficiencies and lower costs, and the world would be covered with small, low power transceivers that connect everything to everything else.

After the hype
Unfortunately, a few years into the hype, no single wireless technology has delivered on all those promises simultaneously. As so often happens in engineering, compromises have to be made.

How can one technology be equally suited to both controlling the lights in a home and controlling a safety valve in a factory? The promoters of some WiEC technologies did make that very promise to a hopefully optimistic market.

However, after the promises made in PowerPoint presentations were vetted in real hardware, the market became increasingly skeptical. Perhaps the promoters over-promised. Perhaps the silicon and stack vendors under-delivered. Perhaps engineers should have not believed that any single technology could solve all problems.

There are several reasons for the failure to deliver on all those promises (though some were indeed fulfilled). The first is that some target performance goals are fundamentally opposed to one another, and provide formidable engineering challenges. Consider low cost versus high reliability.

Engineering a low-cost solution requires a holistic approach to reducing expenses. First, silicon size must be reduced, requiring compromises in transceiver architecture (open-loop versus closed-loop modulation, as an example, with the latter providing higher reliability at increased die size).

Next, network stack size has to be trimmed down, to minimize the amount of code space needed in the processor running the RF transceiver. Slimming down the network stack would likely mean that intelligent features like complete node-to-node routing and network self-healing have to go. Need those features? You must pay the expense in silicon area.

How low is "low cost?"
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this kind of compromise; after all, "low cost" and "high reliability" are relative phrases. How low cost is "low cost?" That depends on who the customer is. Let's say that a particular wireless technology would cost $100 per node. That is prohibitively expensive for a light switch targeted at consumers in home environments. But $100 may be quite acceptable, perhaps even down-right attractive, for a customer designing an industrial process automation solution for factories.

Comparing low cost and high reliability provides only one example of the many concessions that have to be made when designing a wireless system, but it effectively illustrates the challenge. It is not clear why anyone thought that there must be a grand unifying wireless technology.

The unfortunate initial response to this reality, however, was the proliferation of a multitude of WiEC technologies, each promising to deliver what none of the others could.

The list is a veritable collection of trademarks, brands, and clever marketing: ZigBee, ANT, Z-Wave, INSTEON, Wavenis, ISA SP-100, WirelessHART (to name a few), and a host of other proprietary RF technologies from companies like Cypress, Nordic, TI, and Freescale (and many, many more). Each believes that they can build a better widget. It is worth noting that not all those technologies target the same markets, but many of them overlap.

The consequence is a market that is highly fragmented. Customers have a multitude of WiEC technologies to choose from, but no clear winner has emerged. Some customers are in a holding pattern, unwilling to invest in technologies that may eventually disappear because of lack of adoption.

The problem is that this has become a self-fulfilling prophecy—lack of adoption is feeding uncertainty, which in turn leads to lack of adoption. This has also meant that profits have been largely absent for a large number of suppliers. What little money customers are willing to commit to cutting the cord on their applications is being spread too thinly amongst too many suppliers.

Good news
The good news is that this kind of pressure is exactly what is needed to narrow the field down, and allow the more competitive technologies to float to the top. The principle of natural selection is in full-swing.

Already, the market is observing a growing maturity from these technologies, at least when it comes to the promises being made. The hype is slowly dying down, and is being replaced with rational, measured thinking that is based on sound engineering.

The new thinking addresses the fundamental flaw in the hype: A single technology cannot solve all problems equally well. But, it may solve a subset of problems extremely well.

A light switch and a valve in a factory may both benefit from a wireless connection but perhaps not the same type of wireless connection. By better understanding target markets and end applications, suppliers and promoters are fine-tuning their focus and their offerings.

Take ZigBee for example, the mesh technology that promised to be in everything from ultra low-cost consumer applications to mission-critical systems in factories. More recently, the ZigBee Alliance has been focusing on a few select applications that play to the strengths of ZigBee, including Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and commercial building automation.

There is less talk now about consumer applications (where low cost needs make ZigBee less competitive than other technologies) and process automation (where higher reliability and stronger security are needed). The ZigBee specification continues to evolve (most recently with addition of the ZigBee PRO Feature Set) to address the results of real-world issues faced by customers who have attempted to implement ZigBee systems over the past two years. Compatibility between the evolving versions of the specification remains a challenge for both suppliers and customers.

The inability of ZigBee to address the industrial process automation market has resulted in some spin-off technologies. Designers have realized that the RF transceiver technology underlying ZigBee, defined by IEEE 802.15.4, may be the right transceiver for the task if paired with a networking protocol better targeted at challenges specific to process automation.

WirelessHART
This has yielded, among others, WirelessHART, promoted by the HART Communication Foundation (HCF). The wired version of HART technology has an installed base of over 20 million units, and the wireless version aims to capitalize on that large existing deployment.

The members of HCF, companies like Emerson Process Management and Endress+Hauser, have fine-tuned the technology to solve problems they are intimately familiar with.

At least in theory, WirelessHART has all the right components to succeed in the market —well-understood problem, fine-tuned technology, and strong backing from industry insiders. It remains to be seen how the first products, which are slated to be released over the coming year, are going to perform in real-world conditions.

That is not to say that every supplier of process automation equipment is backing WirelessHART. Honeywell Process Solutions is pushing its own proprietary OneWireless technology instead, with a promise to adopt the measures outlined in the ISA's SP-100 specification once that is finalized.

An interesting trend to note is the coalescing of both suppliers and customers around the IEEE 802.15.4 specification. It turns out that 15.4 is a good transceiver and MAC technology to use for several applications, as long as the network protocol on running on top is fine-tuned to each application.

Some protocols are being standardized among alliances (ZigBee and WirelessHART), whereas others are building their own proprietary protocols on top of a standard transceiver technology.

The good news for designers is that many silicon vendors offer IEEE 802.15.4-compliant solutions, which will eventually mean lower costs and higher performance as the competition heats up. The good news for the silicon vendors is that whether or not a particular protocol like ZigBee or WirelessHART wins, the underlying transceiver is the same, and thus they have a chance to recuperate their investments. This has been one bright spot in the highly fragmented wireless market.

Moving away from industrial wireless applications to consumer applications, one WiEC technology that has had a sense of purpose from its inception is Z-Wave. Z-Wave is a proprietary technology being promoted by its creator, Zensys Inc, which also leads the Z-Wave Alliance of adopters.

Despite being a single-supplier technology for several years (the specification has recently been opened up to other silicon vendors), Z-Wave has created a moderately-sized ecosystem of adopters because it has specifically targeted home automation, and nothing else.

The Z-Wave Alliance pitted the technology as a lower cost, simpler alternative to ZigBee that still provided mesh networking capability. Focusing on the home automation market enabled Zensys to hone-in on problems more important to the consumer—low cost, ease of use, and compatibility between equipment from multiple vendors (lamp from one vendor, light switch from another).

It is not the most sophisticated wireless technology around—and its exceedingly simple architecture (very low data rates, for example) may in fact prevent it from being implemented in applications more complex than turning a light on or off. Similar to Z-Wave is another technology called INSTEON, which targets the same market, and has a comparably-sized ecosystem of vendors.

Wary consumers
Even with relatively simple WiEC technologies like Z-Wave and INSTEON, wide-spread adoption by consumers has been largely absent. The key reasons from an end-user perspective are cost and ease-of-use.

A regular light switch costs under $2. A Z-Wave enabled wireless light switch costs around $40—and of course it must have a wireless light source to communicate with, which is another $40+.

The 40x ($2 vs. $80) multiplier in price is tremendous for consumers, and the benefit obtained is not compelling enough to justify the added expense. Furthermore, installing a wireless system is still quite challenging, requiring optimal placement and configuration.

This is why ZigBee, Z-Wave and INSTEON remain in the domain of the custom-installer market, where well-off consumers spend thousands of dollars to have specialized companies come and outfit their homes with these wireless solutions. Consequently, these technologies still ship in low volumes, and healthy profits are nowhere to be found.

I once asked a marketing manager at a major lighting control company what it would take for such solutions to reach millions of units in shipping volumes. She said that this would only happen if each of the nodes cost the consumer under $5, and they were able to install it in their home unassisted.

It is clear that this goal is still far away; however, it is not beyond reach. So even though the promise of millions of small WiEC transceivers connecting the world remains unfulfilled today, it is only a matter of time before ubiquitous connectivity becomes a reality.

Businesses need it, consumers expect it, and smart engineers the world over will see to it that they deliver on their promise. It will take a better understanding of the markets, target applications, and the underlying motivations of customers to finally achieve that goal.

About the author
Sherif Hanna Strategic Marketing Manager for Wireless Solutions at Cypress Semiconductor Corp.

No Need to Wait Wibree, ANT Now Can Link Cell phone to Sensors

2008-02-22T21:28:00.000-08:00

Today, ANT announced (Press release) the launch of ANT miniSDIO card solution from a Taiwan company Spectec. The news release also announced the available of a software development kit for Windows Mobile OS 6.0. A demonstration running on Motorola Q phone is mentioned. And the demonstration is able to link to heart rate monitor, foot pod and other sensors on ANT+Sport.

This is definitely a very strategic and proactive move towards Bluetooth ULP (Wibree). With the hype aroused in the industry, the Wibree SIG group has delayed twice of the schedule already since the announcement of Wibree standard. I was told by a reliable resource a month ago that the release of Wibree standard will be likely next Q1. Though there is no further details of the availability date and price, this ANT miniSDIO card solution is certainly much (12 months) closer to commercialization. Another beauty of this solution is that it is not relying on one particular phone. Basically any phone support miniSDIO and Windows Mobile 6.0 is in theory able to adopt this solution.

The price of a miniSDIO card may be high. I wonder it could be as high as a sport watch, but this will not be a problem for those who need this function and the convenience to be able to use cell phone to track personal sports training and health data. The release also mention the plan to develop other forms of SDIO card. I bet the other form is microSDIO which is more popular.

Will this solution a interim solution? Will it disappear when Wibree enabled phones available to the market? It is possible. But this is in the future and who knows how long the future could be ahead. If someone wants to be the leading health or fitness service provider and product manufacturer, ANT provides the solution today.

I like ANT, one reason is because it is from no where but start to success. Have you heard the name of Cochrane before? It is a town, not a city. This miniSDIO card is from a Taiwan company, Spectec, another unknown before.

Average 40 Nodes Per House for a Home Automation Installation

2008-02-11T14:26:00.000-08:00

The following piece of news/blog quotes some numbers from ON World research report. Zigbee and Z-wave are assumed to implied to dominate the wireless home automation market. No argument to this fact as we see today.

A further simple calculation gives me this result: $2.8 billion / 14 million households = $200 /households.

So the price of the smart household wireless sensor network is at average $200 each. Let's further assume $5 per nodes, then we get 40 nodes per such home used WSN. Not a large scale. I think this number is realistic. With this scale, it confirms my points in my previous blog that a mesh topology may be overkill even in home automation application, and some simple technologies (in terms of networking capability) with cheaper cost, such as Wibree, ANT etc. may get a pie from this market.

Research: 14 Million Smart Wireless Sensor Network Households in 2012

Recent research from ON World has found that the "smart home" is becoming a reality for the mass market thanks to emerging standards, increasing energy costs, and advances in Wireless Sensor Networking (WSN).

The wireless smart home market is accelerating and indicators of this growth include hundreds of products currently shipping and established service providers like AT&T and K Telecom ( News - Alert), who are starting to offer WSN-based home monitoring services.

ON World conducted this extensive research with over 100 home installers, vendors, and suppliers.

The residential sector is an essential target market for wireless sensing and control solutions with a total potential market size of 6 billion cumulative WSN nodes worldwide. Some of the largest and fastest growing smart home markets include lighting, energy management, security, entertainment control, and home health.

According to the research, the market for the Wireless Sensor Network smart home will increase from $470 million in 2007 to $2.8 billion worldwide by 2012.

Darryl Gurganious, senior research analyst for ON World, said in a statement to the press, “While proprietary WSN systems have been used by professional installers in luxury homes for over a decade, wireless protocols such as Z-Wave and ZigBee will make smart home solutions affordable for the average household.”

The report also points to major factors behind the growth of the smart home market that include the success of wireless mesh networking protocols such as ZigBee and Z-Wave, and the industry alliances that were formed to promote each of these.

Currently, a battle between ZigBee and Z-Wave for control over the smart home is occurring. While ZigBee-based solutions are preferred by global manufacturers and professional installers, retail focused companies such as Actiontec, Intermatic, Jasco, Hawking, and Monster Cable have said to prefer Z-Wave.

What to See in 2008

2008-01-10T09:54:00.000-08:00

Late 2007 should be the time to preview what will happen in 2008. I have not seen a report in the wireless sensor network arena. No pressure of missing the target, I'd like to list several focusing points where interesting and exciting events may happen.

Head to head competition in personal sensor network: Bluetooth ULP vs. ANT
Head to head competition in home automation: Zigbee vs. Zwave
Head to head competition in industrial automation and control: Zigbee vs. DUST
Any milestone of Bluetooth ULP: protocol release (was scheduled in 2007) and sample chips
Destiny of Zigbee: Zigbee Pro announced 2007 is not backward compatible, however many proprietary solutions also based on 802.15.4 emerged, including DUST, MiWi.
Will the WSN market see somewhat integration or further enlarged segmentation? who can achieve the task that Zigbee has not achieved.

I am also hoping to see any new innovative and eye-opening technologies

Another Emperor's clothes - Bluetooth

2008-01-07T14:50:00.000-08:00

One day of this week will be the ten-year birthday of Bluetooth. No one doubts its commercial success. Reuters has an article today.

2008 Marks Ten Years of Bluetooth Wireless Technology | Reuters

Fine. I dare to ask a question, how many of the 2 billion Bluetooth devices are actually in use?

My company provides me a Blackberry with a Bluetooth earpiece. I tried it once and I felt so awkward. I am not a heavy phone talker, and the only chance for me for use earpiece is when I am driving. Most of the usage is to listen audio books, in which case the Bluetooth earpiece won't work completely; the phone or the earpiece or both do not support the required profile. So instead, I turn to the wired earpiece accessory coming with my Blackberry. And of course I enjoy the stereo sound and do not bother charging battery (...for the earpiece). Further I do not have a concern of radiation next to my head. I do not feel I am talking to the air. If there is phone call coming in, I can click the button on the earpiece to switch to the phone call and it will automatically resume to the audio program I was listening to. My Bluetooth earpiece has a far more complex coding scheme of pairing, receiving call and many functions I can not remember.

My team has about 15 co-workers. To my observation, none of them use Bluetooth equipped with their cell phone, including my sales manager. My sales manager is a talkative person, but I only see him having the wired earpiece around his neck. I will ask him next time why he refuses Bluetooth.

Okay. This is because I am in a farm country in North America. How is the life style in metropolitan? I attend many conferences and travel world around. I do see people with a bulky thing next to their ears. But this does not qualify for a Bluetooth function on every cell phone.

Moving two years backward, I once worked on an accessory product trying to convert RS232 serial port to Bluetooth. I got a sample from the market, and holy smoke, it took me a entire day with help from a suppose expertise to set thing up on the PC. Now we know, new rev of Bluetooth has claimed an improved pairing experiences. And maybe Windows Vista improved the Bluetooth User Interface too. But anyway, a mental block has built up.

Let me have a gut-feeling guess, 50% of the Bluetooth device are in cell phone, 20% is in PC, 20% earpiece and 10% in another applications like remote control, gaming, industrial apps etc. If 10% of cell phone owners use Bluetooth, it gives you 5% usage rate. The corresponding earpiece should also have 5%, which is about 25% of the total earpiece shipped (sounds right). For PC, I never use it. Mouse, gaming and hi-fi audio may be the application, I give it 5% of the 20%; and it will be 1%. In the last, I want to be generous to the rest 10% of specific application that 80% is actually in use, and it will be 8% in a bigger picture. Add them up, I get 19% of the 2 billion, which is 380 million. Still not bad, with the price of 1.6 billion silicons never used (but paid by consumers, $9B). Should the green party sue all the phone manufacturers?

This is actually not unique, many consumer electronics provide features for competition/image/social stature and alike soft purposes. Even for cell phone and PC industry, this is not the first time. There are many software features that are not actually in many usage, such as WAP, but they are given for free (by perception; it actually consumes memory with expense of design and testing, which will add up to consumers). For hardware, I still remember IrDA, once was everywhere from cell phone, PC to printer. I owned several phones with a dark red window, but I have never ever used it. For personal interests, I only tried IrDA once on my Mac to transfer files with my colleague. We (The two Mac's) had to laser aiming to each other. I am wrong, I am actually using IrDA everyday... on my TV remote control.

I read another article today saying Wi-Fi will make its mark in handsets this year (http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205208037). I love Wi-Fi so far, all of my Wi-Fi equipped devices are in active use. I think Wi-Fi will continue its success in cell phone arena (real success in term of usage rate) because its focus is on VoIP, to make people's lives cheap, not fancy.

Mesh - The Emperor's New Clothes for WSN?!

2008-01-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

I met Nick Hunn last Nov in a Bluetooth conference. I should not say "met" but "saw" or "observed". In that location, he was one of the prominent agitator of Wibree, now Bluetooth ULP. His enthusiasm, or over-enthusiasm on Bluetooth ULP can be felt 5% from the article attached below. You got to listen to his speech. He is a great speaker and marketer. I wonder he is carrying a wrong hat. Instead of CTO, he should be CMO. Interestingly, other guys from Nordic Semiconductor and Texas Instrument (Chipcon) are more conservative and were shaking heads during Nick's speech; and these conservative guys are the actual solution (protocol and silicon) providers.

I digress... I should write another blog for my thoughts about that conference, though two months passed.

Nick's article below does have one negative tone and it is towards mesh. So you know Bluetooth ULP does not support mesh. But his view makes sense and I can not agree more for many pragmatic applications today. Here is what he says:

"One of the most pernicious myths relates to mesh networks. Meshes have many admirable qualities when they are appropriately used. However, in many cases mesh is marketed as the answer to reliability issues of a wireless link. It certainly is a solution, but at what appears frequently as a ridiculous cost. The myth of mesh tends to be promoted by software companies who lack the RF knowledge to realise that better system design primarily resides in a robust radio. Instead, we see standards that resemble an inverted iceberg, with minimal radio technology at the base, and a massive software overhead which attempts to compensate for the basic failings.

The other myth of mesh is its association with low power. While a sensor node within a mesh can perform as a low power node, as soon as it become involved with routing within the mesh, the power and memory requirements start to spiral. These devices, which form the backbone of the mesh, need power. Inevitably such meshes become complex to configure, resulting in implementations that require careful site surveys and lengthy configuration.

Wibree brings the opportunity of debunking the myth. Its robust radio removes the requirement of building a mesh simply to bring reliability to a radio network, as that reliability has been designed as core technology. Where there is a need to extend range beyond normal operating limits, it becomes far cheaper to deploy additional access points and relay nodes. Like mesh nodes, these will need to be powered, but the incorporation of the attribute protocol makes them much easier to set up, allowing simpler reconfiguration and extension of the network."

His full article is here

The Industrial Ethernet Book - Articles: Wibree: a direct line to Industrial Wireless

Wibree, also know as Ultra Low Power Bluetooth, is poised to become the fastest growing wireless standard ever. Its symbiotic relationship with Bluetooth will open up substantial opportunities for network operators in consumer-based services. Less publicised are its many features that will prove of equal significance to the industrial market.
By Nick Hunn

When the Wibree standard was announced by Nokia in November 2006, it caught much of the industry unawares. The initial response from many analysts was simply to categorise it as yet another competitor in the 2.4GHz space. Others pronounced it to be just a ‘Bluetooth spoiler. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 2007, Wibree was adopted by the Bluetooth SIG as the ultra low power arm of the Bluetooth family. Indeed the concept envisages dual-mode chips that can support both Bluetooth and Wibree. This symbiotic existence will be key to Wibree’s market success. There will also be single-mode low power chips which enable a wide range of devices to talk to these dual mode chips.

Every wireless standard aimed at mass market applications faces the problem of achieving a critical mass of nodes. Wi-Fi managed this on the back of laptops, Bluetooth managed it on the back of mobile phones. As yet none of the other prospective short range wireless technologies have found a platform that will generate critical mass within their market place. This is where the Wibree design scores: it has a built-in route to mass deployment. Because mobile phones containing Bluetooth chips shipped in Christmas 2008 will include Wibree dual-mode functionality – effectively for free – it means that by the end of 2009 there could be over 100 million Wibree-enabled handsets in existence.

From the first to the millionth 802.11 chip took a leisurely four years. Bluetooth did better, but was still a slow starter taking 17 months from the first product to the millionth one, although it proved exceptionally active since that point, taking just another five years to get to the billion mark. Because Wibree will be automatically included within new generation Bluetooth chips, it is likely to reach that one million shipment milestone in just a week ...

That concept of Wibree within a Bluetooth chip is vitally important in understanding its place and the role that it can fulfil. Because low power, personal Wibree devices will be able to communicate with handsets, it means that in time every mobile phone becomes a Wibree gateway to the mobile network. So every Wibree device can communicate with the internet, allowing information to be sent backwards and forwards. And because the data rates are low, the cost of this data transfer will be a negligible portion of the user’s monthly phone contract. The new paradigm will enable a range of additional services that today are just too expensive for widespread deployment.

Where Wibree came from
Wibree didn’t just appear from out of the blue. There is an irony in the fact that the origins of Wibree appeared as the alternative proposal for the radio and Media Access Controller (MAC) for the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which is now the basis of ZigBee and other short range radio networks.

Back in 2001 two industry groups put forward proposals. Nokia headed one of the groups and proposed a handset-centric development. This group’s major design tenet was that ‘it could be deployed with minor effort into devices already having Bluetooth, e.g. cellphones’ with the added requirement that a ‘common RF section with Bluetooth must be possible’. This vision was also broader than that of the competing camp; it envisaged a world of a trillion wireless, web connected devices. A key slide shows millions of connected laptops, billions of mobile phones and trillions of what could be interpreted as Wibree-enabled devices.

In the event, the IEEE committee chose to adopt the alternative proposal for the 802.15.4 standard – but this did not stop Nokia working on its proposal. It matured in a commercial project supported by the Finnish Government.

The key architect of the Bluetooth standard continues to add its expertise for what will be the most robust and effective short range wireless standard yet. Those interested in watching a standard evolve can still see the original proposals on the IEEE site¹ and compare them as the final version is released.

What Wibree does
Wibree provides ultra low power radio within the 2.4GHz band. Low power is always determined in large part by the application: the longer a device is active and the more data it transmits, the shorter will be its battery life. The declared aim is a radio that can transmit a small packet of data approximately every second for a year using a small button cell such as a 150mAH CR2032. If the duty cycle is reduced to one transmission every 15 to 30 seconds, then the battery life effectively becomes the leakage life of the battery. A key radio design consideration limits peak current to less than 15mA – the highest current a button cell can provide – while achieving a range exceeding 100 metres. This is beyond the bounds of any current radio technology of significant range, including Bluetooth and ZigBee.

The overall low power drain derives from a protocol that lets the radio stay asleep for most of its life. It can wake up quickly where upon it broadcasts its requirement to transfer data on a number of advertising channels across the spectrum. The receiving device, which is likely to contain a larger battery as it will be on for more of the time, acknowledges receipt of this data, at which point both can go back to sleep. The whole process will take less than a few milliseconds.

Wibree within an existing Bluetooth chipset represents a key cost advantage, but not the only one coming from a symbiotic existence. A growing level of interference has to be a major concern about radio deployment in the 2.4GHz band. Bluetooth for industrial applications already exploits this concern through its resilience to interference. Where ultra low power is a requirement, there is still no satisfactory solution – a situation that has persuaded groups such as ISA² to look afresh at their radio requirements for a robust industrial wireless standard.

Wibree technology protocol stack: Wibree was designed with two implementation alternatives. The stand-alone implementation is designed for use with applications which require extremely low power consumption, small size and low cost. Examples might include watches, sports and medical devices and human interface devices (HID) such as wireless keyboards.

The Bluetooth-Wibree dual-mode implementation has Wibree functionality integrated with Bluetooth by reusing key Bluetooth components and the existing Bluetooth RF. Examples of devices that might benefit from the dual-mode implementation include mobile phones and personal computers. The Wibree link layer provides ultra low power idle mode operation, simple device discovery and reliable point-to-multipoint data transfer with advanced power-save and encryption functionalities .The link layer provides the means to schedule Wibree traffic in between Bluetooth transmissions. echo route.

Wibree provides the answer. As with the Adaptive Frequency Hopping of Bluetooth v1.2, the same techniques have been introduced into the Wibree standard, but in a form that removes the need for Bluetooth’s high accuracy crystals. This preserves the dual objectives of low power and low cost that characterise Wibree.

This robustness is critically important for industrial applications. The 2.4GHz band is unlicensed and widely used by many different radios, including Wi-Fi and ZigBee. Over the course of an industrial project, it’s difficult to anticipate what level of interference will be encountered over the life of the installation. Direct Sequence radios that sit on a single channel (such as Wi-Fi and ZigBee) are notoriously prone to interference, to the extent that they can stop operating. Adaptive Frequency Hopping can adjust the frequency usage to follow a changing spectral picture. This characteristic alone promotes it the method of choice for EMC-toughened industrial applications.

In many cases, the other end of the Wibree link may be a mobile phone acting as a gateway or alternatively a Wi-Fi access point. The processor running these can accumulate the frequency pattern that the Bluetooth chip performs, along with knowledge of the Wi-Fi channels to ‘pre-program’ the Wibree hopping scheme to ensure best performance, even where competing radios are co-located.

Questions about range
Much of the early coverage of Wibree concentrated on its use in short range applications, typically for sports and fashion devices that would connect to a mobile phone. The working groups that are evolving the standard understand the importance of the wider Machine to Machine (M2M) market and are ensuring that Wibree has the capability to address them. This short range label is the same type of understatement that has haunted Bluetooth; although Bluetooth is normally referred to as a short range technology for less than ten metres, the reality is that it is successfully used for many applications over hundreds of metres³.

Looking more closely at the parameters that will determine range, the first point is that it will share the Bluetooth radio and receiver chips. The most recent generation devices have receive sensitivities around - 85dBm and can directly deliver about +4dBm of transmit power. With careful RF design this gives an open field range better than 200 metres. The higher modulation index of Wibree suggests that for the same receive and transmit values, the link budget should offer an additional 20% range increment. Dual mode Wibree chips will use the same receiver and transmitter technology within these chips for sensors typically within the house or factory floor. Adding a power amplifier to boost the output to 100mW (+20dBm) should make it possible to achieve an open field range close to a kilometre. That will require the addition of power control and a possible wait for a future release of the standard. But as more designers see the potential, it is certain that it will be demanded.

The initial profile set
Wibree is adopting the principle of profiles to define its most common application areas. In its initial release, these will cover intelligent displays, such as a watch and sensors, where the standard focuses on industrial and medical applications. Although this may seem a somewhat esoteric selection, the standards behind them enable far more than a first glance would suggest.

This is not Wibree yet, but indicative of hardware modules to be available in 2008.The device shown here is a fully integrated and qualified Class 1 Bluetooth module with RF, baseband, antenna and protocol stack. It can deliver up to 65mW of RF power giving line of sight operation up to a kilometre. This module uses the CSR BlueCore 04 chipset. [EZURIO]

The Generic User Interface Device profile provides a method of transmitting information to any display. And the most prevalent portable display is the screen of a mobile phone. Turning this around, the Generic User Interface Device profile may be employed to make a handset a general purpose display for other devices. That can be anywhere. At home, or in the wider world, such as public transport information broadcast from a bus stop or in a railway carriage.

The receiving device doesn’t need to be static for this scenario. A feature of the short time required to complete a data transfer means this profile can be used with moving receivers. If we consider a transmitter with a 100m range, a vehicle moving at 100km/h will be within range of the transmitter for around four seconds – more than enough time to pick up traffic information from a beacon. An increasing number of vehicles already have a Bluetooth-enabled driver display – aka satellite navigation system. There is minimal incremental cost using Wibree to receive additional messages from roadside transmitters. This lends itself to Integrated Traffic System application development.

In the industrial environment, wireless sensing is potentially an enormous market. It doesn’t just cover industrial SCADA in factories, it encompasses active ‘pulling’ of information from any device that needs to send information. The low power of Wibree enables a host of battery powered devices. It also opens up the market for ‘power-free’ devices that either use solar, thermal or vibrational energy conversion sources.

Network architecture
An important facet of the Wibree standard relates to the work being done to connect sensor devices to a remote server. Most wireless standards limit their scope to the immediate wireless connection. Wibree contains a new Attribute Protocol, which views overall platform development end-to-end. It allows a Wibree sensor to locate a gateway device and connect to it, then use its attribute protocol to extend its connection through the gateway to a predetermined remote middleware location. From this point the attribute protocol lets the sensor converse directly with the middleware, whether for control and interrogation, or output delivery to a remote database. The effect of this facility cannot be underemphasised. For the first time a wireless standard is being engineered that acknowledges the key network aspects of end-to-end platforms. It moves M2M from a specialist area to the possibility of low cost, mass deployments.

Putting these together, the Generic User Interface Device Profile, Sensor Profile and Attribute Protocol developments take in most of the prospective applications currently envisaged by wireless device developers.

Mobile network opportunities
Wibree embedded mobile phones turns these ubiquitous devices into gateways, in effect an integrated GPRS modem connecting to Wibreeenabled ultra low power sensors. The scope of these is limited only by demand and developer imagination. The obvious ones are healthcare. Less obvious ones will rapidly evolve. For example, consider emergency messages. If Wibree is fitted into the airbag in your car, then whenever it is deployed in a accident, the airbag could send an emergency call out through your phone. The cost of implementing that is around a dollar for the chip, plus the cost of the monitoring contract, which a network could offer for a minimal annual premium. Compare that to the cost of current systems, which involve several hundred dollars of hardware in the vehicle and a similar annual monitoring cost. It also plays to the current legislative requirements for mobile phones to provide emergency location information.

The same economics come to play in almost every scenario where a low cost alarm or monitor will be within range of a consumer handset.

The industrial market
In many ways, the industrial market has always had the greatest reason for implementing wireless. Unfortunately, the diversity of its applications has meant that it has had relatively little serious attention from those developing wireless standards. Even where a standard has presented itself as appropriate, it invariably has been designed with other priorities in mind that those of the industrial user.

Generally the prime requirement is robustness. Industrial applications need communications to work reliably and predictably. A second frequent requirement is low power consumption. Low power becomes important for several different reasons. It may be to remove the need for a power cable, whether because of the cost of a power connection, or because the sensor is located on a moving part where power cannot be provided. If both are to be achieved the best approach is to design them into the core standard as an integral part of its architecture, rather than trying to bolt them on afterwards.

In reality, this has not been addressed by the majority of wireless standards. Specific applications have successfully used proprietary radio design, while standards-based activities have mostly concentrated on higher volume consumer markets, either ignoring, or failing to evangelise their industrial potential. As a result, a number of unfortunate myths continue to circulate.

The ultimate industrial HMI? It is really not that so far fetched with the inclusion of Wibree ultra low power Bluetooth silicon [CSR]

One of the most pernicious myths relates to mesh networks. Meshes have many admirable qualities when they are appropriately used. However, in many cases mesh is marketed as the answer to reliability issues of a wireless link. It certainly is a solution, but at what appears frequently as a ridiculous cost. The myth of mesh tends to be promoted by software companies who lack the RF knowledge to realise that better system design primarily resides in a robust radio. Instead, we see standards that resemble an inverted iceberg, with minimal radio technology at the base, and a massive software overhead which attempts to compensate for the basic failings.

It must be emphasised that neither Bluetooth, nor Wibree are designed for high data rate applications. They typically provide throughputs in the hundred of kilobits per second. If low power is paramount, then the amount of data being transferred needs to tumble with the device itself being powered down for the majority of its life. Where industrial applications need sustained higher data rates, either Bluetooth EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) or 802.11b/g (Wi-Fi) is likely to be more appropriate.

Time to start planning
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and other short range wireless technologies have already spawned a first generation of personal wireless devices and embedded applications. However, neither has made great inroads in addressing the dual requirements of the myriad of devices that must operate off a small battery for a period of years and also have a readily available portal to send their information back to the internet. Nor have they successfully penetrated a significant portion of the industrial market. Wibree ticks the boxes to change this.

More importantly, Wibree comes built within Bluetooth chips. Current development in Bluetooth, with the evolution of a medical profile and industrial strength automation profiles are paralleling the same developments within Wibree. A product designer can start to design with Bluetooth today, knowing that there is a low power roadmap to Wibree within a few years.

Taking all of these factors together, Wibree has the potential to transform SCADA and Process applications. By making the mobile handset a gateway, it brings the network operators into the equation. And they have the resources to aggregate and enable service provision.

With Wibree adopted within the Bluetooth fold, more resources and expertise are being stitched into the fabric of the standard. However, it is actively supported by the major Bluetooth chip vendors including Cambridge Silicon Radio and Broadcom. Its presence will hinder other short range, low power wireless technologies from gaining traction in the handset, ensuring that Wibree is placed to own the low power wireless market, whether in industrial applications, healthcare or consumer products.

We will shortly see the first modular Wibree platform development kits. In the meantime expect the mobile networks to engage in leveraging their infrastructure for short range wireless applications.

References
1. http://www.ieee802.org/15/pub/2001/Jul01/ Original proposals to the IEEE 802.15.4 working group. Documents reflecting the genesis of Wibree include: 01230r1P802-15_TG4-Nokia-MAC-Proposal1.ppt 01231r1P802-15_TG4-Nokia-PHY-Proposal1.ppt
2. http://www.isa.org/MSTemplate.cfm?MicrositeID=1134&CommitteeID=681ISA Working group SP100 – Wireless Systems for Automation
3. http://www.ezurio.com/dl/open/?id=19Understanding Range – a white paper explaining wireless range

Nick Hunn is CTO, Ezurio Ltd

ANT Dev Kit Ranks 6th in "What's New at IEEE in Wireless"

2007-12-13T12:02:00.000-08:00

I am looking for a summary of WSN events in 2007 and find this one (see the link and copy attached) relevant and surprising.

ANT, a proprietary solution, beats many other standard solutions to hold a 6th position in "What is New @ IEEE". To be accurate, it is the ANT dev kit. To be more accurate, it is the piece of news about the dev kit. But it is surprising as it beats many news much more important, such as the marriage of Wibree and Bluetooth, Zigbee Pro release etc. The title of the news is not eye-catching and so mediocre. The only explanation may be that the industry is so desperately in need of a workable solution.

What's New at IEEE in Wireless - 12/12/2007

Special Issue: What’s New @ IEEE Year-in-Review
This month’s issue of What’s New @ IEEE in Wireless will take a look back at the most popular news stories for the past year. Ranked in order of popularity based on the number of clicks received, each story will give a brief synopsis of the initial article, provide links to the original What’s New story and full article, and include recent updates on the featured technology, where applicable.

1. Free IEEE Communications Society Online Tutorials
IEEE Communications Society's Enhanced Conference Tutorial Program presents a collection of recent tutorials given at Communications Society-sponsored conferences. December’s featured tutorials cover software radio implementation, the evolution of technology in business communications, and trends in the communications field.
See initial What’s New @ IEEE article (May 2007)
Learn about new tutorials

2. 1-Kilometer Bluetooth Debuts
A new Bluetooth wireless module with a one kilometer line-of-sight range has been debuted by the British-based firm EZURiO. The new module is the size of a postage stamp, includes an omni-directional antenna, and has total power consumption of less than 700 milliwatts. EZURiO’s entire line of Bluetooth products provides robust, high performance, short range wireless connectivity. The company also produces a number of products utilizing the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN (WiFi) standard. See products
See initial What’s New @ IEEE article (July 2007)
Read original article

3. Software Makes Hacking Wireless Networks Easier
A new computer program that can automatically hack into vulnerable wireless networks was demonstrated by software developer Aaron Peterson at the DEFCON computer security conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. The program, called WiCrawl, searches for wireless local area networks within range and calls up tools needed to exploit any vulnerabilities detected, gaining access to protected networks. WiCrawl is currently available for download and the developers are asking new users to provide feedback on the Midnight Research Labs website.
See initial What’s New @ IEEE article (August 2007)
Read original article

4. Tests Show 802.11n Outperforming 802.11g
In a recent test of draft-compliant IEEE 802.11n chipsets, results showed products utilizing the new IEEE standard significantly outperformed older 802.11g-based systems. The testing focused on authenticating the throughput versus range performance of draft 802.11n equipment.
See initial What’s New @ IEEE article (August 2007)
Read original article

5. New Bluetooth Consumer-Friendly Standard Approved
The 8,000 members of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group unanimously approved its new standard, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), expecting it to be more secure and easier to use while demanding less power than the previous standard. The use of Near Field Communication (NFC), an ultra short range technology allowed by the new standard, should improve security and help increase the speed of connecting Bluetooth devices. According to the NFC Forum, the technology evolved from a combination of existing contactless identification technologies and products built with NFC will dramatically simplify the way consumer devices interact with one another.
See initial What’s New @ IEEE article (August 2007)
Read original article
Learn more about Near Field Communication

6. New Wireless Sensor Network Development Kit Introduced
Earlier this year, Nordic Semiconductor ASA released a wireless sensor network development kit that allows engineers to build a 2.4GHz wireless sensor network within minutes and avoid the complexities traditionally associated with testing specific applications.
See initial What’s New @ IEEE article (September 2007)
Read original article

7. New Bandwidth, Rules Could Transform Wireless Communication
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s auction of the 700-megahertz bandwidth could have a major impact on wireless technology, according to experts, who say FCC chair Kevin Martin’s call for an open broadband network will open the door to innovative wireless services.
See initial What’s New @ IEEE article (July 2007)
Read original article

8. WiMax Technology to be Included on 3G Networks
India’s department of telecommunications approved use of WiMax as one of the interfaces in the third-generation telecommunications standard. Although the decision is not final until certified by the International Telecommunications Union, experts say the decision marks a turning point for the nation, allowing for enough wireless capacity to assist Internet telephony or VOIP.
See initial What’s New @ IEEE article (September 2007)
Read original article

9. Wireless Internet Access Expanding Throughout United States
According to an article in Today’s Engineer Online, public and private investment in wireless Internet access is accelerating, making it the biggest growth area in wireless communications. The article’s author, George McClure, gives a number of examples of efforts to develop WiFi networks by municipalities based on various IEEE 802 standards for local area networks and metropolitan area networks – all with varying success rates.
See initial What’s New @ IEEE article (July 2007)
Read original article

10. Experts Deny Claims of WiFi Radiation Risks
In response to warnings of increased health risks to children in schools that use wireless networks, a growing number of U.K. scientists, health experts, and politicians all agree that more experiments are needed to verify the dangers associated with wireless networks.
See initial What’s New @ IEEE article (June 2007)
Read original article

11. Researcher to Improve Speed of Underwater WiFi Communication
A researcher at the University of Missouri-Rolla, Dr. Rosa Zheng, plans to improve the speed of wireless underwater communication through the use of multi-input, multi-output technology. The method weighs multiple paths and antennas to boost the data transfer rate and allows for the transmission of signals at the same time, using the same frequency band. Zheng is currently an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.
See initial What’s New @ IEEE article (September 2007)
Read original article
See articles written by Rosa Zheng in IEEE Xplore

IEEE 802.15.6 - Body Area Network Working Group Launch

2007-12-11T14:05:00.000-08:00

During my off days, this may be the biggest news to WSN world. I've seen many news or comments regarding this event, the attached one is the most pertinent. As 2.4GHz does not work through body, so it has to be sub 1GHz. I kind of believe there is typo in the article, as it mentions sub 1 MHz. How big the device has to be and how can it saves power?

Would be interesting to see the impact to the industry, Bluetooth ULP and Continua Health Alliance. Will this move stop many efforts on proprietary solutions?

IEEE launches new working group for Body Area Network tech

By David Chartier | Published: December 06, 2007 - 12:25PM CT

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) this week approved the formation of a working group for IEEE 802.15.6. Otherwise known as a "body area network" (BAN), 802.15.6 is a low-frequency technology intended to endow a future generation of short-range electronics—both in body and on or around it—with a wireless communication standard for exchanging information. How far into the future this standard and any electronics that utilize it will arrive, however, is anyone's guess; presently, there is no official timeline for ironing out the standard.

A good real-world example of this technology in practice is a pacemaker that can alert or be controlled by a wristwatch. Of course, the military is also considering this technology's advantages, as BAN's short-range design will ideally reduce the chances of interference and eavesdropping. The need for security is also prevalent, given the sensitive nature of some of BAN's theoretical implementations.

Compared to other short-range wireless technologies already on the market, such as Bluetooth, 802.15.6 and its BAN system appear to focus on functioning at relatively low frequencies, less than one megahertz, and short range use. By comparison, Bluetooth's journey to 2.0 and beyond has generally brought longer ranges, slightly more power consumption and greater data bandwidths.

An IBM white paper offers a number of case studies for 802.15.6's eventual place in the world, such as shoe inserts that can exchange business cards once two wearers are within proximity of each other. BAN's low frequency and short-range operation makes this an ideal use, as shoes are harder to steal than, say, a mobile phone or wallet, and people typically don't toss their business card halfway across a conference room.

As the new 802.15.6 group gets to work on this new technology, we will no doubt see more theoretical situations make a case for whether it gets voted off the technology island.

Welcome the New Era

2007-11-21T12:14:00.001-08:00

Wireless Sensor Network is really getting hotter and hotter. From the launch of Zigbee several years ago to the recent event of Wibree joining Bluetooth, plus a lot of movements from companies owning proprietary solutions, all of these events proves a new technology hype has started to play on the stage from under the ground - Hey, there is even a proprietary protocol named ANT.

Most of these solutions are short range radio running on license-free frequency bands(2.4G, 900M and etc.) , claiming "ultra" low power, claiming mesh capable, low data rate in nature of sensor.

Applications are quite diversified from our daily life such as home automation, sports and fitness, to civil construction and industry such as building infrastructure monitoring, and to military battle field monitoring. In different applications, different terms and acronym is used, e.g. PAN for Personal Area Network, BAN for Body Area Network, as well as WCN, Wireless Control Network.

This blog is dedicated to these newly emerging technologies and applications, as well as those companies and organizations who are driving and riding on the wave.