Wireless IoT Networks
ARTIK modules provide the technology and protocols you need to master the IoT world. Moreover, we'll show you how to tie them all together!
Wireless IoT Technologies
The ARTIK development boards support a variety of low-power wireless interface options that are ideal for IoT applications. While each technology has its strengths and it is difficult to make precise comparisons, we offer the table below to provide an overview.
The ARTIK 5, 7, and 10 series modules have Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth®/Bluetooth BLE and ZigBee®/Thread® capability integrated on the module itself, using circuitry nearly identical to the ARTIK 0 devices.
| Tech | End Device |
Gateway/ Control |
Data Rate | Range | Pkt Size |
Application |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bluetooth | not available | A5, A7, A10 | 1-3Mb/s | 0.5-20m | 251 | personal entertainment |
| Bluetooth BLE |
A020 | A5, A7, A10 | 1Mb/s | 0.5-20m | 11 | smart home, health/fitness |
| ZigBee | A030 | A5, A7, A10 | 250kb/s | 10-200m | 68 | sensor monitoring |
| Thread | A030 | A5, A7, A10 | 250kb/s | 10-200m | 63 | home automation |
| Z-Wave | proprie- tary |
dongle | 40 or 100kb/s | 10-200m | 1K* | home automation |
| SIGFOX | proprie- tary |
ARTIK Cloud (no ckt on board) |
12 bytes/ msg, 140 msg/day |
3-15km | 12 | distant sensor monitoring |
| Wi-Fi (a,b,g,n, ac) |
A053, A5, A7, A10 | A5, A7, A10 | from Mb/s to Gb/s | 10-200m | 1.5K* | general purpose |
*variable packet size
Most of these technologies have an ultra low-power "sleep" mode when not active and most of the time are drawing current in the microamp range. Wi-Fi is the exception, and requires more consideration versus the other lower-power solutions.
ZigBee, Thread, and Z-Wave are all appropriate choices for the home automation space, with Z-Wave having been around the longest. In their latest versions, all three have the ability to form mesh networks, with Thread having the most sophisticated ability to re-establish connectivity when a "child" is moved from one "parent" to another.
The Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE, and ZigBee circuitry is located on the ARTIK module itself; the Z-Wave modem is a USB dongle option. The SIGFOX circuit present on some development boards is not used; refer to the SIGFOX article for more information.
Wireless IoT Protocols
The radio for each IoT technology determines who they can talk to, but protocol is an additional consideration. For example, ZigBee and Thread are carried using the same radio technology; MQTT and CoAP traffic is likewise carried over Wi-Fi. However, none of these protocols interact natively with each other, not even those sharing the same radio technology.
While these discussion topics are covered in depth by articles on other Web sites, we bring them up here as an introduction to our next topic.
Gateway Management Services
ARTIK modules have a unique advantage when used to implement services such as Home Assistant, AWS Greengrass, and the Edge Node Manager, in that they incorporate both technology and protocol support for the most desirable IoT methodologies. That is, hardware and drivers are built-in to support:
- ZigBee/Thread
- Bluetooth/BLE
- Wi-Fi/MQTT/CoAP
Z-Wave also fits into the picture, most conveniently implemented as an add-on dongle-type solution.
AWS Greengrass
Our starter tutorial on AWS Greengrass lets you install the AWS Greengrass core services on your gateway, instantly allowing you to deploy run-time code, known as AWS "Lambda" functions, to any device on your system. The functions let you effortlessly exchange data between edge nodes and the many AWS Web services.
Home Assistant
We provide an article on Home Assistant, a Python-based program that ties together data from the technology/protocol combinations mentioned above, and allows you to create interactions among all of them. Moreover, you can easily set it up to send data of interest to ARTIK or other cloud services, while leaving each edge device under your secure local control.
Edge Node Manager
Specific to Thread networks, the Edge Node Manager allows you to keep track of all Thread-conntected devices in the system. Because of the CoAP connectivity, you can readily tie this configuration management system into Home Assistant and other services with simple code routines.