Zigbee is a widely used smart home protocol and is even integrated in the Amazon Echo, so we need to know everything there is to know about it.

Key points:

• The smart home industry has seen exponential growth with the emergence of various devices and platforms that enable connectivity and automation.
• Zigbee is a wireless networking standard that allows different devices from different manufacturers to communicate with each other in a smart home system.
• Although Zigbee faces competition from the newer Matter standard, it is still widely used and supported by major players in the smart home industry, including Amazon, Philips, Samsung, and others.

Smart home devices have exploded over the past few years. What was once called "home automation" is now called the "Internet of Things" and has become a friendlier category we call the smart home. We have almost everything – heating, lighting, cameras, sensors, and new devices appearing all the time to bring the home into the connected future.

Over the past few years, we've moved from a disconnected system to a world with emerging hubs, with large devices like Amazon Echo and Nest Audio acting as hubs that connect all connected services together, as well as companies like Apple Platforms like HomeKit and SamsungSmartThings. The launch of the new Amazon Echo Hub shows that the battle to become the smart home system of choice is far from over. So, what role does Zigbee play in this brave new world of smart homes?

Why Smart Homes Benefit from Zigbee

Smart homes are centered around integration. Essentially, everything is constantly communicating, so people, as well as devices, are always up to date with what’s going on in your smart home. For example, lights "talk" to security cameras, or a smart coffee maker turns on when a person wakes up. The Internet of Things may be a rather useless term, but essentially, that's what's happening - everything is connected, which means information can be shared and life can be controlled without having to access each thing individually.

All these connected devices are handled by the automation system over a single network. The result is a powerful app- and device-driven smart home. However, for applications and devices to work together under a single network, a single common language must be used. This is where Zigbee comes in.

What is Zigbee?

Zigbee is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 personal area network standard. If none of this means anything, just know that Zigbee is a specification that's been around for over a decade, and it's widely regarded as an excellent alternative to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for a number of applications, including those that don't require a lot of bandwidth. Low-power devices—such as smart home sensors.

A typical example is when you have a Zigbee-enabled light bulb and a Zigbee-enabled light switch, and you want the light switch to control the light bulb. With Zigbee, the two devices speak a common language, so there is no communication barrier, even if they are from different manufacturers.

Zigbee isn't focused on point-to-point communications like Bluetooth, but it operates in a mesh network, which is why it's perfect for smart homes.

In fact, for customers building smart homes, devices supporting the Zigbee protocol may still be isolated, but as we move forward, as more and more devices want to act as central controllers, providing smart devices with Fewer wireless protocols have clear advantages, especially when you can avoid connecting a large number of hubs to your router.

Zigbee is slightly disrupted by the presence of Matter. Matter is the latest standard designed to unify devices in the smart home and fulfill the role Zigbee was originally intended to do. The company behind Zigbee has changed its name to the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) and is pushing for the adoption of Matter, a protocol that offers some technical advantages over the older Zigbee protocol.

What is a mesh network and where does Zigbee come from?

Mesh networking is when network connections are spread out between wireless nodes that can communicate with each other and share network connections over a large area. Think of nodes as small transmitters that function the same as wireless routers. Zigbee's ability to support mesh networking means it can extend data transmission range and provide greater stability, even when a single connected node fails or becomes inoperable.

With Zigbee, there may be a master coordinator node that controls other connected nodes, such as the latest version of the Echo Show 10. If one node fails for some reason and is unable to communicate with a second node on the mesh network, the master node and the second node can communicate by linking to a third node within range. Each node acts as a relay of sorts and all nodes cooperate in data distribution, hence the mesh network. Zigbee supports up to 65,000 nodes in a single network.

All of this means that smart home devices or sensors can be used remotely from the smart home hub without losing connectivity. Data is passed from one node to another, so as long as there are enough nodes, it can communicate with the device on the opposite side of the smart home hub.

What devices use Zigbee?

Now that you know what Zigbee is, it is necessary to understand the devices that work with Zigbee. Just using this wireless network standard doesn't mean it will work harmoniously; after all, it's possible that no one controlling application knows what all these devices are. Here are some of the main users of Zigbee in smart homes:

• Amazon
• Comcast
• Honeywell
• Huawei
• Philips
• SmartThings
• Texas Instruments
• Amazon
• Belkin
• Ikea
• Lutron
• Nokia
• Osram
• Bosch
• Indesit
• Samsung
• Velux
• Humax
• Panasonic
• Miele

However, just because a business uses the protocol doesn't mean it will work immediately. Philips Hue uses Zigbee to connect its bulbs, but that doesn't always mean it's possible to add additional bulbs from different manufacturers. However, with devices like the Amazon Echo (4th generation), the way Zigbee is handled changes, as Alexa can be asked to control all these different types of devices without the need for a hub or app from each manufacturer. The Echo can be told to search for devices, for example, to find a Philips Hue light bulb and control it, without any input from Philips at all.

Amazon Echo devices, as well as Google Home or Apple HomeKit are interesting because they are smart artificial intelligence devices that can control more functions. For example, the Echo can control Zigbee devices directly, but it can also enable skills to control devices running on other standards, such as a Ring video doorbell. The biggest question when using Zigbee is whether it will meet the needs, as there are also Wi-Fi connections and manufacturer-specific hubs, depending on what an individual wants to do and how to achieve it. The disadvantage of using Zigbee control from a third-party device, such as Philips Hue, is the potential loss of functionality when not using Philips' app. So it's questionable whether you want to do this.

A popular application for Zigbee is for smart sensors, small, low-power devices that can monitor things like temperature or humidity in your home, or detect motion. They're perfect for Zigbee because the mesh networking capabilities mean you can drain the battery but still be able to communicate with a smart home hub on the other side of your home.

Do all smart home hubs support Zigbee?

The easiest way to control your smart home is through a smart home hub. This is a central device that communicates with all smart home devices in your home and delivers commands. This means there's no need to use eight different apps to turn off different brands of smart light bulbs in your home; one command from the smart home hub can control them all.

However, not all smart home hubs can use Zigbee. For example, if you use the Echo Show 8 to control smart home devices, it doesn't have Zigbee built-in, so you won't be able to directly control any Zigbee devices, although they can be controlled from a hub. Or, you can use Echo Show 8 to control Zigbee Philips Hue lights, provided you have a Philips Hue bridge to send Zigbee signals.

Having a smart home hub with built-in Zigbee is definitely a better option as it opens up a world of Zigbee smart home devices that can be controlled directly without the need for any additional hub. Amazon seems to be aware of this, as the Echo Show 10 does have Zigbee built-in, as does the new Echo Hub, which is the first Echo device designed primarily to control the smart home.

Other Zigbee-compatible smart home hubs include Amazon Echo (4th generation), Samsung SmartThings Station, and Aqara Smart Hub M2.

What is the Zigbee Alliance?

Since its establishment in 2002, the Zigbee Alliance consists of hundreds of different companies using Zigbee technology, including Amazon, Samsung and Ikea, to maintain and publish the standard. However, since the formation of a more unified smart home standard Matter in 2021, the Zigbee Alliance has been renamed the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA). The idea is that CSA will basically do for Matter what the Zigbee Alliance did for Zigbee.

However, due to this recent shift, Zigbee devices and Zigbee technology will not disappear overnight. Zigbee will likely continue to evolve with Matter and will likely create a path to a new standard over time. Zigbee and Matter cover many of the same ideas, and as Matter evolves, many manufacturers are looking for ways to build bridges between older Zigbee devices and the new Matter standard. Philips Hue, does this by updating the Hub.