Introduction
Smart home protocols are the backbone of the interconnected devices and systems that make up a smart home. These protocols allow different devices and systems to communicate with each other and work seamlessly together to make our homes more efficient, convenient, and secure. From Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to Zigbee and Z-Wave, there are a variety of smart home protocols available today, each with its own unique features and benefits.
Then, let’s get a quick overview of the major smart home protocols available today, including Bluetooth, WiFi, Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Thread.
Bluetooth
Connect smart devices via Bluetooth to realize control and data transmission in the local area network. It’s a protocol that you’ve probably already familiar with and you probably use it to connect your headphones to your phone or a mouse and keyboard to your laptop.
There are some home automation devices out there that can be controlled via Bluetooth, like some of the Philips Hue lighting products. This is a great place for people to get started with home automation because pretty much every mobile phone these days has Bluetooth built-in and you can simply buy a smart Bluetooth light bulb connect it to your phone, and then change the colors or the brightness directly from the Philips Hue app without buying anything else. If you want to grow your smart home a little bit, you can then pair these Hue Lights directly with a compatible Amazon Echo device and turn them on and off or adjust the brightness using your voice.
Bluetooth works fully locally in your house which means that you can still turn on and off the lights when you have no internet connection. In some cases, companies won’t make you sign up for one of their Cloud accounts just to use their products which is what we ultimately are looking for when we’re choosing smart home devices.
Bluetooth smart devices usually use something called Bluetooth low-energy, which, as the name suggests, uses very little battery power. Unfortunately, you can’t really do a lot else with this Alexa-enabled old smart light and it only really works in the same room as you, because Bluetooth doesn’t have a huge amount of range.
WiFi
The Wi-Fi protocol can connect to the Internet through a router, which can realize remote control and monitoring. Its main features are high bandwidth, fast transmission speed and wide connection range. It’s a pretty good home automation protocol, because most people these days already have Wi-Fi, so you don’t need to get any extra infrastructure.
Wi-Fi is also the best protocol for smart devices that need a lot of bandwidth like security cameras and anything else that involves video, but sadly a lot of internet service providers give their customers some pretty cheap and underpowered Wi-Fi routers to go along with their internet connection. Some of these routers only support a dozen or so wireless devices connected at any time, so they can quickly become overwhelmed once you start adding a bunch of smart lights, bulbs, switches, and sensors alongside your TVs, mobile phones and laptops.
A lot of companies that make Wi-Fi-based smart home devices also do it, so they can force you to sign up to one of their cloud services before the device will even work. A great example is tp-link who used to make great locally controlled Wi-Fi smart plugs, then they discontinued these and replaced them with a new version that will only work if the plug is able to talk to the Internet.
So when you use your phone to turn on this Wireless Smart Switch it sends the signal from your phone inside your house up to some server in who knows what country which then sends the signal back down into your own house to turn the switch on. Why not only does this invade your privacy, because some random company now has a log of every time you turn on and off your switch but it also makes it noticeably slow to react.
Wi-Fi is also a very busy and noisy protocol in some homes if you’re hogging all the Wi-Fi bandwidth watching 4K Netflix, the signal to turn lights on and off can get stuck in the queue, slowing down the whole process and even more. Because your devices are connected to your Wi-Fi network which is connected to the internet. it also makes them more susceptible to getting hacked or taken over.
Z-Wave
It is a wireless communication protocol specially designed for smart home devices. Its main features are low power consumption, high bandwidth, high reliability and strong interoperability. Z-Wave protocol can support up to 232 devices.
Z-Wave is a protocol that was designed specifically for smart home environments, unlike Bluetooth and Wi-Fi which were originally created for different reasons and have been adopted by the smart home industry. Z-Wave is an awesome smart home protocol.
One of the best things about Z-Wave is that it creates something called a mesh network. A mesh network is a computer network that gets stronger and more reliable as you add more devices to it. That’s because Z-Wave devices that are hardwired into electrical power can act as a router to which other Z-Wave devices can connect, letting Z-Wave messages Bounce from device to device until it eventually gets to the hub or controller. Each router you add extends the range and reliability of the overall Z-Wave network.
If you’re in a situation you have your home automation equipment in the basement, then you can add Z-Wave devices like light switches into your other rooms of your house and they will amplify the network into the farthest corners of those rooms.
Z-Wave is also a low-power Network so any battery-powered sensors and devices that you have will use very little energy. It’s not uncommon to have your battery sensors last for over a year or so on a single battery along with being a low-power Network.
Z-Wave is also a low-frequency Network working at around the 900 MHz radio spectrum which not many other radio devices use anymore. This makes the Z-Wave Network less susceptible to radio interference and the lower wavelength makes the signal great at going through walls and floors.
Z-Wave is a fully local network so the devices are not accessible from the Internet or your Wi-Fi and the messages sent between the devices are encrypted. These things make them more secure than other networks and ensure they keep working even if your internet connection goes down. The lower-power Z-Wave Network also has very limited bandwidth available about 100 kb/s which is significantly slower than Wi-Fi and even slower than Bluetooth, which makes Z-Wave a terrible choice for bandwidth intensive purposes like streaming video security cameras or streaming audio, but it’s really not a problem for sensors like motion sensors light switches or temperature sensors, because they send very little data.
Sadly, one of Z-Wave’s greatest strengths is also one of its greatest weaknesses, and that’s the fact that the Z-Wave Alliance allows products to bear the Z-Wave logo, which requires certification from Z-Wave, and you can only ask for a Z-Wave product to be certified if you yourself are a member of the Z-Wave Alliance. The benefit of this is that you can guarantee that a certified Z-Wave product will work with all other certified Z-Wave products, which is what this certification is designed to uphold.
Unfortunately, while the cost of getting a product certified is quite high, which might be prohibitive to some smaller companies, and companies that can afford the certification fee will no doubt pass that cost onto consumers, which is why we typically see Z-Wave devices cost a little bit more than their Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Zigbee equivalents, also unlike Bluetooth and Wi-Fi you won’t find Z-Wave built into your smartphone or laptop and you’ll need to buy a separate Z-Wave Hub or controller for these devices to connect to.
But overall it’s an amazing smart home protocol and the positives of it far outweigh any negatives if you’ve got a bunch of Z-Wave devices already in your network, and you’re happy with them then there’s no reason to move away from it keep using Z-Wave.
Zigbee
It is a low-power, short-range wireless communication protocol, mainly used for communication between smart home devices. Zigbee protocol can support up to 65,000 devices and can be networked through network topology.
Firstly, it also creates a mesh Network, so almost every single hardwired device that adds to my Zigbee network makes the overall system stronger and more resilient. Just like Z-Wave, Zigbee creates a local network independent of your internet connection and Wi-Fi network, with data sent between devices encrypted and using very little power.
It’s still a low-bandwidth protocol with a maximum throughput of about 250 kb/s. That’s two and a half times faster than Z-Wave, but still too slow for video audio or anything like that, and just like Z-Wave, Zigbee also has an alliance and a certification program where the Zigbee certification system seems to be a little more lacks than the Z-Wave one.
Zigbee has been around since the 90s, so it’s got a long history of being a solid home automation protocol and there are so many devices available for it. The amount of Zigbee products that you can find on Amazon or AliExpress is amazing.
In a word, it’s a low-power local and encrypted smart home mesh protocol that supports a huge variety of devices.
Thread
It is a low-power wireless communication protocol based on IPv6. Its main features are support for the interconnection of multiple devices, security, stability and low power consumption.
Thread is a newer smart home protocol that to me looks a lot like a new and improved upgrade to Zigbee. In fact, it’s based on top of the same radio Hardware that Zigbee uses, so it also uses the 2.4 GHz radio spectrum and has the same 250 kb/s throughput, and just like Zigbee, thread creates a low-power encrypted mesh Network designed for Smart Home. It even has a similar certification program to Z-Wave and Zigbee, so you should be able to confidently purchase thread-certified devices that work together.
So what makes it new and improved, firstly, one of the downsides of both Z-Wave and Zigbee is that you can only ever have one Hub controller coordinator whatever you want to call it active in each Network at a time if your Hub breaks, gets turned off or is otherwise inaccessible, then the entire network goes down if this Hub is actually broken and you need to replace it with a new one, then you need to go around and reconnect all of your devices all over again.
One of the major benefits of Thread is that you can have more than one Hub in your network, known as routers. One of these routers is elected as the leader and it becomes the boss of the network if this leader Hub gets turned off or breaks then another router in your network can take over, making the whole network more resilient and less likely to crash, another benefit is that thread devices have the ability to turn off their radios when they’re not needed making them more energy efficient than Zigbee and Z-Wave devices. A Zigbee device might last a year on a battery, while an equivalent Thread device might last two or three years, and finally Thread uses IPv6 addressing, so it should be able to talk to Wi-Fi smart devices and other services on your home network or even the internet.
Thread is relatively new so while we’re seeing more and more smart home manufacturers adopt thread, it still has its teething problems on some platforms. There are also way fewer devices available on the market at the moment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, smart home protocols are the foundation of modern smart homes, enabling seamless communication and interoperability between devices and systems. As the demand for smart home technology continues to grow, it is important for manufacturers and developers to adopt and integrate the latest smart home protocols to ensure compatibility and reliability. With the right protocols in place, smart homes can become truly intelligent and adaptive, meeting the needs and preferences of their occupants while enhancing the overall living experience.
