Mesh networking can open up a lot of really interesting applications. No single device has to transmit the data more than a hundred feet, so the power required by each device is much smaller. This requires a product with a large battery.īut with mesh networking, you can relay the data from device A to device B, to device C, and so on all the way to device Z. Normally, if you wanted to send data from device A all the way to device Z located 2,500 feet away, you would need a transmitter with considerable power. This allows you to create a huge network of interconnected devices that can cover a large area with extremely low amounts of power.įor example, imagine that you have 26 devices labeled A through Z, which are spaced out in a line with one hundred feet between each device. The data is sent from device A to device B, which then relays the data to device C.

This is the case for peer-to-peer technologies such as Bluetooth and WiFi Direct.īut with mesh networking you can instead send data from device A to device C via device B. Normally, to send data from device A to device C you must form a direct link between device A and device C. If your product is battery operated, and needs to send relatively low amounts of data a short distance away, then one of these four technologies is likely the best solution.Ī critical feature supported by all four of these technologies is called a mesh network, sometimes referred to as a many-to-many network. There are four common technologies for creating a low-power, low-data network: Bluetooth Low-Energy, Zigbee, Z-Wave, and 6LoWPAN. Low-power / Short-range / Low-data Mesh Technologies Active tags are also available which include a battery.Īs a side note, wireless charging, where you recharge a device by placing it on a charging mat, also takes advantage of this same phenomenon of power transfer between two coupled coils. The advantage of passive tags is they are simple, cheap, small, and last almost indefinitely since there is no battery. Both communication and power transfer are occurring between the two coupled coils. Instead, a passive tag is powered from the electromagnetic field of an NFC reader device. In this case passive means there is no power source. The most common use for NFC is in contactless payment systems.Īlthough payment data is of course encrypted, the extremely short operating range of NFC also helps to eliminate the possibility of someone else nearby hacking the transaction. The two coupled coils essentially form a transformer with an air core. NFC communicates using electromagnetic fields shared between two coils, whereas all other wireless technologies emit radio waves.īecause NFC communicates via two coils that are electromagnetically coupled together, the operating range is only about an inch or two. Near field communication (NFC) is fundamentally different than the other wireless technologies discussed in this article. That speed comes at a price though and that price is mainly higher power consumption. In fact, WiFi Direct is over a hundred times faster than Bluetooth.

The advantage of WiFi Direct over Bluetooth is mainly faster transfer speeds. It uses the same frequency and offers similar bandwidth and speed.īut, it doesn’t require an access point, allowing two devices to have a direct connection similar to Bluetooth. WiFi Direct uses the same basic technology as traditional WiFi. Like Bluetooth, but unlike traditional WiFi, WiFi Direct is a peer-to-peer wireless technology.Īs you probably already know, traditional WiFi sets up an access point that allows many devices to connect to it.īut what if you want to transfer data directly from one device to another without the overhead of an access point? That is where WiFi Direct comes into play. This is true even though nearly all phones and tablets support it.

WiFi DirectĮveryone knows about WiFi, but few people have heard of WiFi Direct. However, Bluetooth 5 which was introduced in 2016, has now essentially merged Bluetooth Classic (4.0) with Bluetooth Low-Energy, allowing both audio streaming and mesh networking all under the Low-Energy specification. It consumes much less power than WiFi, and a lot less than cellular technologies, but still significantly more than technologies such as Bluetooth Low-Energy or Zigbee.

Bluetooth dominates peer-to-peer streaming audio applications such as this Bluetooth headset.īecause of the relatively short operating range, Bluetooth is fairly low power.

Wifi vs bluetooth arduino