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Editor's note: In today's guest column, Redpine Signals Product Manager Vellanki Mohan weighs in on the smart grid communications battle. As always, you are welcome to use the Talk Back form on the bottom of the page to add your comments.

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By Vellanki Mohan

 

Much like the Blu-ray Disc versus HD-DVD battle to define the standard format for high-definition movies, the feud is heating up around the adoption of communication standards for the electric grid. In the Home Area Network (HAN) market, where smart home appliances offer the promises of energy savings and peak demand reductions, manufacturers of such devices are engaged in a battle over what communication standard should be adopted in the smart grid as consumers link their freshly installed smart meters to HAN devices obtained from their neighborhood utility. 

 

As smart grid enters the home, will Wi-Fi or Zigbee become the standard? The Blu-ray versus HD-DVD standards war can teach us a lot about some key factors that will determine which communication will ultimately win out. 

 

Lesson 1: Don’t ignore critical mass in the ecosystem 

In the Blu-ray versus HD-DVD head-to-head, both technologies were capable of meeting the current market specifications. Yet, Blu-ray was able to take the lead because of the critical mass adoption in the eco-system. For example, Apple announced its support of Blue-ray more than six months before Microsoft decided to support HD-DVD. Critical (and early) mass is also important with wireless connectively. While Zigbee has been around for a while, Wi-Fi is well past the adoption cycle. It is fully entrenched in the home and fully capable of serving as the backbone of a home energy management system. It has been widely adopted as a broadband solution for heavy home applications. Zigbee has positioned itself as a utility sponsored energy management connectivity solution, not a backbone.  

 

Lesson 2: Look for seamless integration

Playstation3 had a built-in Blu-ray drive, which not only boosted the actual uptake of Blu-ray but also the perceived uptake since all PS3 units were counted as Blu-ray players. Xbox supported HD-DVD but only with an optional extra drive that never attracted a lot of support. Today, Wi-Fi is available in smartphones, tablets, PCs, laptops and all major operating systems, and with the launch of the 802.11ac standard, it will soon be embedded in televisions. It is also IP friendly, which means that Wi-Fi sensors are therefore seamless across all segments of the smart grid without requiring special networking infrastructure. All the home devices you want to use to display, notify and interact are on IP networks, giving Wi-Fi a huge advantage. Zigbee has made a splash, on the other hand, in some of the industrial and commercial wireless controls. While eventually the industrial technology may filter down to the residential world of air conditioners, dishwashers, refrigerators, intelligent remote controls, smart phones and the like, it will take years – and Wi-Fi has the head start on seamless connectivity and integration with home systems.

Next page: Moore's law matters >>

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Current Comments (6)

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RE: Smart grid communications: To Wi-Fi or not to Wi-Fi

Interesting enough that WiFi and ZigBee are still considered valid options to implement HAN communications. From a logical perspective IEEE 1901 Boradband over Power Line should be seen as a more compelling candidate as all those devices that needs to interact with the meter usually have already have a power plug to communicate over and thus there would be no need for additional infrastructure. Neither would there be all the nasty problems WiFi brings along such as interference and unwanted signal propagation.

FME - 10/26/2011 - 07:38

WiFi Vs Zigbee

Not WiFi not Zigbee! But 6LoWPAN!

Anders Kjellström - 10/26/2011 - 09:51

Misses the Point

It is time to move past these commercial messages on one technology versus another as if the consumer is going to pick based on these underlying technologies. In the market there will be ZigBee and WiFi and powerline products coexisting to provide solutions to customers. Use of WiFi or powerline is not a threat to ZigBee but a complement and use of one versus ZigBee does not mean ZigBee is obsolete any more than use of WiFi meant Ethernet is no longer used. Different technologies have different strengths and fit in different parts of the market. As for the points in this article - 1. Critical mass in the ecosystem - this ignores the 50 million ZigBee meters under contract and being installed (more than 15 million installed to date). It is these devices that will be communicating into the home. 2. Seamless integration - Use of one underlying MAC/PHY or another does not result in my smart phone providing me difficulty if I am using GPRS versus WiFi or even CDMA. The seamless integration is in the applications presentation to the user not in the physical layer selection. 3. Moore's Law - While the author notes ZigBee has a cost advantage he expects WiFi to catch up due to Moore's law. Given that ZigBee chips are generally on their 3rd generation and WiFi chips are on their Nth generation - we can actually expect much more cost and price reductions in the ZigBee space as it matures than in the already mature WiFi space. While it makes for interesting articles to bash one technology versus another - it avoids the question manufactures are actually trying to answer. Which of the technologies should be used in which part of the network and why? And more importantly, these various interest groups are better off working together to ensure seamless integration so the market can mature and grow rather than throwing stones. The Smart Grid will grow and prosper when customers can actually see some benefit. We should be discussing what it will take to enable devices in the home now so customers can make their own selection of what devices they want and how they will use them.

Skip Ashton - 10/26/2011 - 23:53

Zigbee + IP + WiFi

The future is taking the best of both worlds! Alike Ethernet and Homeplug, WiFi carries IP, world's most succesful networking technology. WiFi is hence more open, futuresafe and multipurpose than Zigbee. WiFi used to consume more power than Zigbee. In the mean time Zigbee lost its low power advantage and hence its core reason for existence. So what is the purpose for a consumer to install two wireless in-home networks (WiFi and Zigbee) if one can do it all? I'ld rather install a WiFi repeater in my home than a Zigbee repeater since then in that area of my home I can also use my tablet, laptop, smartphone, ... for billions of applications. Moreover most households already have a WiFi base station so they don't need to invest anymore in a Zigbee one. Zigbee however has doen a lot of good work re. standardising messages between all kinds of devices in the home. WiFi however can also carry all the Zigbee messages see e.g. the recent SEP 2.0 announcement. But Zigbee can't carry e.g. voice or video or HTTP or ... . Conclusion: let 's take the best of Zigbee messaging + IP networking + WiFi wireless datalinking!

Chris Lefrère - 10/27/2011 - 01:22

ZigBee and IP

It is not about ZigBee vs. Wi-Fi vs. 6LoWPAN. The author is missing the point regarding ZigBee and Wi-Fi, as indeed is the commenter referring to 6LoWPAN (which is, after all, an adaptation layer between IPv6 and 802.15.4). As Chris points out, there was an announcement yesterday regarding a consortium to continue the development of the Smart Energy Profile 2 (http://www.wi-fi.org/news_articles.php?f=media_news&news_id=1092). This will cement the already-existing ability to run SEP 2 over multiple MAC/PHYs, including of course, Wi-Fi and HomePlug. In conjunction with this, the ZigBee Alliance is developing ZigBee IP, which is a configuration of an IPv6 stack using 6LoWPAN and other IETF protocols to enable IP networking using 802.15.4 in a certifiable and interoperable manner. Many homes now run multiple subnetworks using WiFi, Ethernet and HomePlug and adding 802.15.4 devices into the mix for low power and embedded devices suitable for e.g. appliances will now become straightforward and enable the Home Area Network required for the Smart Grid.

Robert Cragie - 10/27/2011 - 09:46

ZigBee

going back to the orgianl article, the question is Wifi or ZigBee? I agree with Skips Ashtons view, right technology for the job, in the right enviroment. ZigBee has huge benefits and there are for more tehcnologies i would compare ZigBee to before Wifi.

Stephen Diaper - 10/28/2011 - 02:51

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