So far, Xiaomi has three main product lines: mobile phones, televisions, and routers, along with ecosystem products launched in collaboration with partners, such as air purifiers, power banks, and headphones. Now, Xiaomi has released a new product: the Xiaomi Smart Home Set.
The Xiaomi Smart Home Set is equipped with Xiaomi smart modules and uses the ZigBee networking protocol, which includes four products: a multifunctional gateway, human sensors, door/window sensors, and wireless switches.
Figure 1 Xiaomi Releases Smart Home Set
Regarding ZigBee, the most well-known solution is from TI, which Xiaomi did not adopt, nor did it use Freescale’s ZigBee or ATMEL’s. Instead, it chose NXP’s industrial-grade ZigBee RF chip—JN5168. Some friends who play with ZigBee may have some understanding of this; in fact, NXP’s RF department originated from Jennic, which was the world’s first company to launch a 2.4GHz RF solution supporting IEEE802.15.4, from the first-generation JN5121 to now.
With ZLG Zhiyuan Electronics’ years of technical accumulation in the IoT field and being one of the first large enterprises in China engaged in ZigBee product research and development and production, they have had in-depth technical exchanges with the Xiaomi Smart Home Set team regarding the JN5168 series ZigBee testing. Let’s take a detailed look at this solution.
1. Powerful Core
The JN5168 features a high-performance 32-bit RISC CPU, which has made breakthrough improvements in data processing capabilities and ZigBee networking capabilities. It supports multiple wireless protocol stacks, including ZigBee Home Automation, ZigBee Light Link, ZigBee Smart Energy, JenNet-IP, and RF4CE, providing a strong foundation for the Xiaomi multifunctional gateway to quickly access the Internet.
Figure 2 ZigBee Module ZM5168 Using JN5168 Solution
2. Extremely Low Power Consumption
The Xiaomi Smart Home Set includes products from human sensors, door/window sensors to wireless switches, all of which adopt a simple fixed installation method powered by batteries. The human sensor has a high endurance requirement of 2-3 years, and the JN5168 has an ultra-low sleep power consumption of just 100nA, making it the lowest power-consuming ZigBee solution available, undoubtedly the best choice.
Figure 3 Comparison of Sleep Power Consumption of ZigBee Modules
3. Superior Penetration Capability
When selecting the overall solution, one must consider not only power consumption but also the environment used in apartments, villas, and other areas with multiple obstructions. The JN5168 has excellent receiving sensitivity and has been successfully applied in complex industrial sites, making it easy for home smart products.
Figure 4 Superior Wall-Penetrating Ability
4. Hardware Automatic Retransmission and Frame Acknowledgment
Additionally, the JN5168 supports hardware automatic retransmission, hardware automatic frame acknowledgment mechanisms, and hardware CCA, which ensure that data packets successfully reach their destination and greatly enhance ZigBee communication efficiency. Moreover, parameters of the ZM5168 series modules (including all ZigBee parameters) can be freely adjusted through configuration tools, and ZigBee networking communication can be achieved once the graphical user interface configuration is completed.
Figure 5 ZM5168 Configuration Tool
5. Support for Large-Scale Networking Protocols
Although the Xiaomi Smart Home Set has only a few access devices, Xiaomi will open the protocol access interface for devices to join autonomously, supporting more nodes. The node capacity has always been a major pain point for various ZigBee solutions. The ZLG Zhiyuan Electronics ZM5168 series ZigBee modules are equipped with the FastZigBee large-scale networking protocol, which has practical application cases with more than 10,000 nodes, confirming that the JN5168 has a larger node capacity.
Figure 6 FastZigBee Topology Structure
