If the problem of fragmentation can be solved, the interoperability of different standards, the integration of different devices and the networking of smart homes can be expected.
The development potential of smart home industry attracts many capitals, including traditional hardware enterprises, Internet enterprises and real estate home improvement enterprises. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Meizu and many other technology companies entered the game. At the same time, the continuous development of mobile communication technology constantly provides strong technical support for the smart home industry, including 5G technology, Bluetooth 5, and the next generation wifi standard, which all have a clear commercialization schedule.
In terms of demand, the number of networking devices and data transmission in the home is increasing year by year, and household appliances such as air conditioners, game machines, televisions and wireless speakers will all be connected to the network.
According to the GSMA report, in 2012, about 8 terminal products in each household will be connected to the Wi-Fi Router, and in 2020, there will be as many as 50 devices connected to the Internet in each household, and the networking standard is not limited to Wi-Fi, but also Bluetooth, Zigbee and other technologies will appear one after another, which makes the demand for Mesh Networking explosive.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the focus of discussion this year. With the increasing number of home networking devices, these devices are expected to develop into a structured mesh network in the next few years from the fragmented independent networking at this stage. In addition, several key developments in the industry in the past two years, such as intelligent voice assistants, have made manufacturers smell the business opportunities of networked smart homes and come up with home wireless connection solutions.
Ready to "re-send"
It has been more than 20 years since smart home was put forward, but during this period, many manufacturers have invested heavily, but so far, it has generally failed. From the perspective of network architecture, it is probably through wireless personal networks (WPAN) such as Bluetooth, wireless local area networks (WLAN) such as Wi-Fi, and control networks such as Zigbee and Thread adopting 802.15.4 protocols. These standards are mature and usually
In addition, Amazon Echo rose in 2016 and became a smart home control center, setting off a wave of development of intelligent voice assistants. Tong Wei, product marketing manager of Dialog Semiconductor, pointed out that the company’s low-power smart home solution supports the Apple Home Kit development platform. In addition, Google and Amazon are expected to be the three major platforms in this field. In addition to the convenience and support of development, the convenience of voice assistants Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant and the richness of services are also the key points of the final application.
From the practical application situation, Hugo Swart, senior director of product management department of Qualcomm Atheros, said that the connected home application is actually a concrete and subtle Internet of Things, and because of the fragmented characteristics of IoT applications, networking devices with different standards will appear in the same environment. In the future, the smart three meters of long-distance WAN applications: water meter, electricity meter and gas meter will also be one of the terminal nodes of home networking, which can integrate the technologies/manufacturers of these different standard network devices.
Rahul Patel, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm’s connection technology business, said that driven by the Internet of Things, the connection technology and network architecture of home automation are rapidly changing, and the networking standards, the ecosystem of vertical fields, and the platform for output and control are all different. Manufacturers choose their favorite camps, which invisibly increases the complexity of home networks and further enhances the difficulty of users’ network use.
each shows his own prowess/skill
Qualcomm, Silicon Labs, Dialog Semiconductor and ARM are all actively proposing home wireless connection solutions. The following is a brief introduction of their technologies and products:
ARM
ARMAdvanced RISC Machines Japan
ARM, the core licensor of embedded processors, has launched mbed from software and hardware to cloud management platform, including mbed OS at the bottom of the system and mbed Cloud at the Internet of Things era, and then set up a wireless communication division through mergers and acquisitions to provide short-distance and medium-long-distance wireless transmission technology IP required by the Internet of Things.
The ARM mbed project started in Cambridge, England, and mainly cooperates with chip vendors and development board vendors to provide high integration and security in the development of IOT devices. At present, there are about 250,000 developers in mbed, and Pan Shaoqi, Asia market director of ARM IoT business group, said that through mbed, it is hoped that developers can be managed by a unified cloud platform, and unified management and firmware update can be carried out for devices. Mbed OS also provides connectivity required by the Internet of Things, from short-distance including Bluetooth low power consumption, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Thread, etc. to long-distance 4G and NB IoT, providing complete resources.
ARM’s embedded core has developed smoothly in recent years and has established a very high brand awareness in the industry. Dou Zhencheng, technical marketing manager of the company’s wireless communication division, said that Cotex and Radio together are Cordio. This solution supports Bluetooth, Zigbee and Thread standards, and its application fields are also locked in smart homes and wearable peripherals. In addition, the application of smart home networking also includes some long-distance application requirements, and Cordio-N is IP for NB-IoT.
In the era of Internet of Things, smart home is likely to be a multi-network, multi-standard, multi-specification mixed application environment. ARM puts forward a solution especially for short-distance networks and long-distance networks, which is optimistic about the market potential of these applications, so it may happen that there are both short-distance and long-distance transmission requirements in the same node, so it is possible to share the same computing core in design and integrate different Radio)IP, so that the design of nodes can be simpler, cheaper and integrated.
Qualcomm Technology USA
The complexity of home network has increased, which makes it more challenging for ordinary users, such as the elders at home. Based on this, Internet service providers need to spend a lot of time teaching people to use the Internet, which indirectly costs a lot of customer service calls and the cost of going to the government for maintenance. In order to reduce the complexity of networking and customer service costs, network service providers should provide consumers with a more sound networking architecture as a coping strategy.
Rahul Patel, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm’s connection technology business, said that there are three requirements for network operators:
First, we need a platform that can automatically start and fix problems;
Second, ensure the security of the network environment and personal privacy;
Third, provide a network architecture that can cover the whole range of the home.
To this end, Qualcomm has launched a Qualcomm Mesh Networking Platform that combines many technologies, which can help OEMs and broadband telecom operators to provide a new generation of networked residential experience in response to the three major demands of the above operators. Devices equipped with Qualcomm mesh network platform can be designed to provide stable and consistent connection functions for various smart home devices in the home, and provide mesh system functions including voice control function, central control management and protection, and various telecom-grade networks.
Patel pointed out that before 2016, the usage of Mesh Router was very low, but with the increase of network complexity, the demand for Mesh Router increased. At the end of 2016, Mesh Router accounted for 23%, and it is estimated that more networked products will enter the home in 2018. It is estimated that more than 50% consumers will buy related products of Mesh Router in 2018, while the usage of standard router will decrease year by year.
In addition, Qualcomm also proposed a smart home solution that uses QCA 4020 tri-band system single chip (SoC) to form an IoT Hub. QCA 4020 supports Bluetooth 5 low-power version, dual-band Wi-Fi and IEEE 802.15.4, including Zigbee and Thread, which is convenient for IoT Hub to integrate all home devices in the area.
Qualcomm also includes Google’s voice solution support. In the future, users can add newly purchased devices to the home network by simply giving voice commands to the IoT Hub through their mobile phones, simplifying the complicated setup process. In addition, QCA 4024 is a low-power version supporting Bluetooth 5 and 802.15.4, which is a low-cost version with simplified functions and is applied to terminal Node.
Silicon Labs USA
Focusing on home automation, multi-protocol and multi-band applications connecting lighting, wearable devices and industrial Internet of Things, Silicon Labs demonstrated the EFR32xG12 Wireless Gecko solution, which functionally emphasized RF performance, enhanced secure encryption accelerator, larger memory capacity selection, internal capacitive touch and additional low-power peripheral and sensor interfaces.
Jason Rock, senior strategic marketing manager of IoT products at Silicon Labs, explained that the EFR32xG12 series supports Zigbee and Thread mesh networks, Bluetooth 5 and proprietary wireless fidelity. Silicon Labs realizes efficient switching between different network protocols by optimizing its wireless fidelity stack architecture. For example, equipment manufacturers can deploy and configure devices through Bluetooth on smart phones with a single chip, and then make them join Zigbee or Thread mesh networks to connect dozens or even hundreds of terminal nodes.
To ensure the security of IoT, EFR32xG12 SoC includes a second internal security accelerator, which is specially used for multi-protocol radio and NIST certified true random number generator (TRNG). This extra hardware encryption block runs with the latest security algorithm, which can provide higher performance and lower power compared with traditional software construction. Jason Rock emphasized that the security of networking devices is becoming more and more important, and the Thread standard adds more security protection specifications to prevent hackers or network security hazards in the Internet of Things.
Bruce Bharat, marketing director of networked control products of Acuity Brands Lighting Company (the market leader of indoor and outdoor lighting, control and energy management solutions), said: "Multi-protocol connection brings more advanced functions, which helps us simplify the design of networked lighting control, while meeting the consumer’s demand for easy installation and online update to extend the product life. Silicon Labs’ Wireless Gecko platform provides us with multi-protocol SoC, modules, robust software protocol stack and powerful development tools, which can help our network-controlled LED devices and control products to go to market quickly. "
Dialog Semiconductor USA
Smart home applications are all-encompassing, and Dialog’s applications for the company are divided into four categories:
The first control applications include Smart Plug, Smart Lighring, Remote Control, etc.
The second type of security applications include Smart Door Lock, Door and Windows Sensor and smoke detector (Smoke/Co).
The third kind of energy applications include air conditioning (HVAC), Thermostat and sensor.
The fourth category of comfort applications includes Smart Appliance, Proximity Tag, Beacon and so on.
The above four types of applications have different requirements. Tong Wei, product marketing manager of Dialog Semiconductor, explained that safety applications pay attention to reliability, safety, low power consumption, miniaturization and quick response time, while energy applications pay attention to reliability, safety, low power consumption, advanced sensor support and miniaturization, while comfort applications require reliability, safety, low cost, advanced sensor support and quick response time, while control applications emphasize reliability and quick response time.
At present, Dialog has provided DA1458x series and DA14680 products supporting Bluetooth standard; With low power consumption, small size and low system cost, DA1458x series is suitable for simple applications such as Beacono and inductive tags. DA14680 is a wearable device single-chip solution, which integrates Bluetooth, MCU and charging functions, and can complete a complete wearable solution only by matching sensors and batteries.
summary
The complex environment and fragmented application characteristics of the Internet of Things are a major bottleneck at present, so it should be a breakthrough to focus on families with relatively small scope but closely related to everyone’s life.
If we can solve the problem of fragmentation, interoperability of different standards and integration of different devices, and develop a complete mesh network at home, then the vision of smart home will no longer be just a slogan, and even contribute to the application and development of larger Internet of Things in the future.