Can Halow Technology Become the First Choice for Smart Home Communication

On January 4, 2015, the WiFi alliance released a new low-power WiFi technology, halow, and claimed that this technology is very suitable for smart home. Halow's frequency band is 900MHz, which has lower power consumption, stronger wall penetration ability and longer coverage distance compared with the previous 2.4G and 5g WiFi. This technology greatly expands the application scenarios of WiFi, covering from portable wearable products to smart home, Internet of vehicles, smart city, industrial facility layout and other application scenarios with high power consumption requirements. Does this mean that the strategy in the WiFi layout smart home is to use halow for transmitting small data information such as control signals, while transmitting big data such as audio and video is naturally 5g WiFi.

Whether halow can help WiFi become the first choice for smart home connection, we look at it from two levels.

First, from a technical point of view, can we solve the pain points of home wireless connection:

1. Dialogue between different communication systems

In the Chinese market, ZigBee, WiFi and 433M are all competing for the "air control" of smart home control. Of course, these three wireless technologies are only the most mentioned and debated at present, not the standards defined by various companies in the 2.4G or 433M frequency band. The numerous connection standards not only do not increase the convenience of smart home control, but also increase the difficulty of interconnection between devices and between devices and gateways. In order to make various devices in the home interconnected, Qualcomm launched its allsee platform and Huawei launched the hilink connection protocol. These companies are working with partners to build a smart home ecosystem. No one can be sure what kind of technology or platform can put a banner of victory in the smart home battlefield.

2. Fast transmission of large data stream and stable transmission of high-frequency micro data

The reason why WiFi can achieve a unique position in the wireless transmission of audio and video in the consumer field is that on the one hand, its bandwidth meets the needs of big data transmission, and on the other hand, its layout has been completed before a large number of audio and video applications are popularized. The early development of WiFi technology was mainly aimed at mobile office applications of laptops. It was not expected that the outbreak of consumer products such as smartphones and tablets would bring a great impetus to it. Fast big data transmission is no problem for WiFi, which has been verified in the consumer market. In terms of small data transmission, it is reported that halow is not suitable for fast data transmission, such as browsing the web, but it is more suitable for high-frequency micro data transmission. What is the actual situation? Well, it needs to be verified.

3. Power consumption and endurance of equipment

Because increasing the communication function will bring additional energy consumption to household appliances and other equipment, it is very important for the equipment powered by power supply, especially foreign household appliances, how to minimize the power consumption to meet the national energy consumption standard requirements for equipment. At the same time, for the built-in battery powered equipment, the requirements for power consumption are more stringent. Halow makes up for the short board with large power consumption and short distance of existing WiFi Technology (which is also the main reason for its limitation in home control), making WiFi a wireless standard that can also transmit low-power micro data. However, the low-power performance of ZigBee, ble, enocean and other communication protocols is also significant. There is no specific data on how low-power halow can achieve.

Secondly, from the point of time, can the popularity of devices integrated with halow catch up with the outbreak of smart home?

If you want WiFi devices with different frequency bands to communicate with each other, the routing products in the network center must integrate WiFi modules compatible with 2.4G, 5g and 900m. From the development of 5g WiFi, it took about two or three years from the launch of the protocol to product popularization, so the popularization time of products compatible with three frequencies should be similar to or less than the above time. Regardless of the increased cost and technical difficulty, just from the point of time, if the launch of such products is ahead of the outbreak of smart home, the success of WiFi ecology may be more guaranteed. However, if the smart home market has exploded within this time, and a platform is compatible with all mainstream wireless modes (such as ZigBee, ble and WiFi) on the upper layer through routers / gateways and other products, halow will be "chicken ribs".

In fact, for users, which wireless protocol and transmission mode in smart home is not important. Good experience, high security and stability are the key to impress users. Although smart home has been developed for more than 20 years, there is no such concept for many domestic consumers. To popularize smart home, we must let the public accept this concept, and be able to afford, use well and use value. This is the main thing. If you want to use it well and value it, you will experience it well. If you want to experience it well, the "dialogue" (Communication) between people and things, things and things needs to be convenient and smooth. Whoever can do this well will have a place.