Zigbee is one of two major wireless standards for internet of things (IoT) technologies. Zigbee is an open standard and is also known as the IEEE 802.15.4 PAN.
Zigbee is an alternative to WiFi and Bluetooth. Zigbee uses less power than WiFi and provides longer distances than Bluetooth.
Whereas 802.11 has a central access point and all devices connect to that access point, Zigbee is instead a mesh network. All Zigbee devices can connect to each other to expand the size of the Zigbee network.
Zigbee uses the ISM (Industrial, Scientic, and Medical) band with the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHZ frequencies in the United States.
Zigbee is secured by using 128 bit symmetric encryption keys.
Zigbee doesn’t connect directly to the Internet. You need a smart home hub that is plugged in and connected to the Internet. Example of smart home hubs include Wink and Samsung SmartThings. When planning out your home automation, try to stick with either Zigbee or Z-wave for easier management. However, some smart home hubs, like the Wink, can integrate both Zigbee and Z-wave to have a single point of control. Some devices may have their own proprietary hubs.