Focus 2.4GHz – Choosing between Bluetooth, Thread and Zigbee

Are you torn between Bluetooth, Thread and Zigbee? We asked our partners and collaborators to help you make your choice.

"Bluetooth is advantageous because it is present in smartphones and allows local interactions with objects, which facilitates updates. It consumes very little energy, moreover the Bluetooth 5 increases the range of devices by several hundred meters. Kévin Berton, CEO of Linkio .

According to Kévin Berton, this protocol is ideal for both residential and tertiary sectors. For tertiary sectors, its low consumption makes it compatible with devices equipped with an energy recovery system, in particular switches that incorporate a micro generator or sensors with a photovoltaic cell. Since these devices do not use batteries, they become maintenance-free equipment, which is crucial when a building is equipped with a large number of devices.

In residential, it is its presence in smartphones that makes the difference. This allows ease of use and flexibility in the use or not of a home automation center.

Indeed, as explained Nicolas Thiers, our project manager and expert in electronics , Bluetooth Mesh allows for a very low cost (both from a development and hardware point of view). It also allows for a mesh network and very low consumption. However, for him, Thread is also a protocol that has a future.

"The Thread, thanks to its standardized low layers, integrates natively into our domestic IP networks. This therefore allows a certain flexibility."

Finally, let's talk about Zigbee, which has been much talked about since its adoption by the giants of the connected world. It is the protocol that has the most profiles adapted to the needs of the connected home. At NodOn, the 2.4GHz platform, CE certified, allows us to meet all the uses and applications of our OEM customers.

"For me, the time has come for Zigbee 3.0. Which is quite paradoxical, because the Zigbee protocol was born more than 20 years ago. It has already been adopted by many solutions that have often made it a proprietary solution, without keeping the interoperability aspect that is important to us at NodOn. Today, Zigbee is mature. Version 3.0 of the protocol makes it a standard and corrects the lack of interoperability that it may have suffered from before.

The Connectivity Standards Alliance has brought Zigbee and made it a reference protocol for the IoT. But the future is already here, and at NodOn we are actively preparing for it. It will be called Matter, the IP-based protocol whose mission is to allow all connected objects in the home and building to communicate with each other. Today is Zigbee, tomorrow will be Matter, via the Thread protocol. And the best part of all this is that today's Zigbee products will be able to talk to other products of different technology tomorrow, thanks to Matter via a dedicated bridge. "says Alexis Polegato, CTO of NodOn .

At NodOn, we have taken the turn towards Zigbee 3.0. If you are still hesitant about the radio technology of your future connected product, our team is available to discuss it and help you make the choice that best suits your needs.

Kévin Berthon : The Bluetooth Mesh widget. This is a feature that allows you to control one or more groups of objects from your smartphone, without having to launch the application.

Alexis Polegato : As a user, my preference goes to Matter – and therefore Thread – which offers us the promise of absolute compatibility between any product and ecosystem. The end result would then be to be able to acquire a new product dedicated to the connected home, without worrying about whether it will be compatible with our existing ecosystem.

Nicolas Thiers : My installation is made up of objects using different protocols, but Zigbee meets all my expectations: consumption, range, feedback, responsiveness, compatibility with voice assistants.

Want to know more? Discover the pages dedicated to these technologies on our site: Bluetooth , Thread And Zigbee .