芯片可以使无缝的智能房屋真实吗？

>> Electronic Design Resources
.. >>数字版本
.. .. >> Top Stories of the Week
.. .. .. .. >> 2021电子设计预测

Wi-Fi的血统可以追溯到“无线LAN”时代，并在建立IEEE 802.11标准委员会和Wi-Fi Alliance方面发挥了作用，Qorvo’sCees Links is well-positioned to opine on the future of the technology he’s so closely associated with. Today, Links is general manager of Qorvo’s Wireless Connectivity business. In this edited interview, Links discusses how the Zigbee Alliance’s nascent Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP) Working Group might catalyze convergence in the smart-home networking ecosystem.

So, how did the wireless networking ecosystem get to where it is at present?

Over the past few years, there have been many networking standards, which meant a lot of fragmentation: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Thread, various forms of Zigbee, and so on(Fig. 1). You see application domains, or ecosystems, such as the Open Connectivity Foundation’s IoTivity and Amazon’s Alexa. Google had Brillo and Weave, Apple had Home Kit, and Huawei was doing Lite OS. Samsung still has Smart Things.

One consequence of this fragmentation was that it kept the market waiting. The feeling over the last, say, two years, is that smart-home networking didn’t live up to expectations. On Regis McKenna’sinnovation hype cycle,我们降落的物联网”有望ugh of disillusionment,” and now we’re trying to climb out of it.

Late in 2019, the Zigbee Alliance launched a new Working Group calledProject Connected Home over IP(CHIP). There were high expectations, and, frankly, a lot of trepidation as well… is this going to work? But after a year of significant effort, CHIP hints at what a convergence point could be(Fig. 2)，带有线程的角色，Wi-Fi，蓝牙和IEEE 802.15.4广播。

IEEE 802.15.4，Wi-Fi和蓝牙无线电无处不在，作为应用程序层协议，芯片定义了所有这些无线电技术的作用。在很大程度上，蓝牙是用于配置的：如果您可以通过芯片与传感器连接到传感器，那么您的手机可以成为传感器的键盘和屏幕。现在，您可以输入配置或设置的安全密钥。当您开心时，您可以将手机与传感器断开连接。使用芯片，您可以使该传感器的一部分，802.15.4或Wi-Fi网络。

So that’s the convergence point that we see being adopted in the market. Will this be only in the home? Initially, yes, but nothing is carved in stone. The industry is starting to realize that this can be a real convergence point, and other market segments, like building automation, could be very interested.

对于许多不同的设备互相交谈，这听起来像是一款不错的工具。

是的，现在我的冰箱可以与我的烤面包机交谈。但是还有更多有趣的问题要解决。我的客厅有三个运动传感器：一个用于照明，安全系统和HVAC。为什么？因为有三个生态系统。我们正在寻求了解如何使用物联网以及对某些传感器，控制器和执行器的期望。这与无线电或协议无关，而与可以共同使用并彼此使用数据的应用程序有关。它需要一种开放性，使该行业正在慢慢发展。

Consumers want data from sensors or devices to be shared with other devices doing other applications, and CHIP enables this. Whether it happens depends on Google, Amazon, Apple, and Samsung making data available from their respective devices to be used by applications in the others’ devices.

我不知道在我的烤面包机和冰箱talking is useful, but if they did, it would have to be in the ecosystems above the communication layer. If the communication layers don’t talk to each other, though, then the layers above will do so even less. From that perspective, I think CHIP is a great step forward and that the industry is really starting to coalesce behind it. If Amazon and Google want it to happen, it will happen.

How might this work in an industrial environment?

Consider Wi-Fi, which, initially, was good for consumers. But companies and enterprises, let alone industries, would never adopt Wi-Fi because it was a consumer technology that lacked the required reliability and stamina. Over time, you had enterprise-hardened Wi-Fi, and Power over Ethernet makes enterprise installations very easy. But the industrial environment is extremely conservative and slow in adopting new standards. So, it’s a matter of time. Frankly, it may be about a decade out.

最大的问题是，这会像我们今天所知道的那样离开Zigbee？首先，Zigbee Alliance及其成员已经意识到，必须有一些事情才能达到一个全球标准。随着时间的流逝，Zigbee将消失。Zigbee的核心技术在很大程度上是在芯片中实施的，包括DotDot群集库。许多Zigbee Alliance成员也参加了线程联盟，该联盟一直在努力使DOTDOT群集库在线程下运行。因此，对于参与者来说，这是一个自然的迁移。

蓝牙的情况更加动态和有趣。蓝牙联盟正在添加网格划分能力，以与Chip和Zigbee竞争。但是，蓝牙人民必须意识到Zigbee的网格融合也已经在芯片下进行了协调。我希望蓝牙网眼将消失。由于蓝牙的配置文件相当于Zigbee中的DotDot群集库，因此电话仍将具有蓝牙配置文件。但是蓝牙在芯片中的作用将纯粹成为供应之一。

With CHIP, we’ll start seeing some unification, and the fight between Zigbee, Thread, and Bluetooth Mesh will disappear. Eventually, it will propagate from the Connected Home to Connected Buildings and Connected Industries.

Zigbee联盟会继续维护和管理吗？

是的，就目前而言，Zigbee仍然在那里，因此无需这样的Zigbee。但是，会有下一代Zigbee Pro 2.x吗？我不能代表联盟，但我希望所有未来的发展都将成为芯片的顶部，而不是Zigbee。

Ultimately, everything depends on the ecosystems sharing their data. Until that happens, I’ll still need three sensors for HomeKit, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa. All three sensors probably work with CHIP, and with Thread, and with 802.15.4. But if the data isn’t shared, I still have multiple apps on my phone. That’s the way you can see it as well.

Standardization starts at the bottom and is slowly crawling up into the value chain. Now, the challenge for the ecosystems is to find a profitable way to share data so that it becomes a rising tide that floats all the boats.

当我们向前移动时，Wi-Fi 6和6e如何适应图片？

We see the world as divided between outdoors and indoors. Outdoors, we use cellular connectivity, with subscriptions and SIM cards. Indoors, we use Wi-Fi, where there are no SIM cards but there’s limited range, basically throughout the home. At home, I use my own network and router, my own connectivity, so to speak.

When I’m on the road, I use the cellular infrastructure, so I need a subscription for that. Now, of course, things start blurring, because you need a subscription to get the internet to your front door, but not necessarily throughout your house.

In the past, you had one router at the front door. If you wanted a strong signal throughout the house, you had to install repeaters and fiddle around. The key to Wi-Fi 6, especially now that we all work from home, is that it’s a distributed architecture(Fig. 3). You’ll go to Best Buy and pick up a Wi-Fi 6 router that will come with two to four satellites. All of these satellites are configured to talk with each other in one network with one ID, one password. That’s the starting point for Wi-Fi 6.

Why is this so relevant to the IoT? One of Zigbee’s selling points is meshing, but with Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi meshing covers the entire home. We believe that in the future, Zigbee (or, if you like, CHIP) meshing will become redundant and wither away. Instead, every CHIP device can find an integrated Wi-Fi/CHIP device in the house and be connected via that device to the network.

In the future, a Wi-Fi pod in a room will connect all devices in the room, but you can also imagine the other way around. My wife hates seeing a router in a room, but if it’s built into something like theNetGear Meural digital art canvas, she wouldn’t care. Televisions can operate as a Wi-Fi pod, surf all of the devices in the living room, and be itself connected via Wi-Fi to the router. So, there’s an interesting kind of future morphing, I like to say, turning things inside out.

The main static devices in the house become Wi-Fi pods for the whole home. Amazon Alexa, or Dot, or a Google device, can function as Wi-Fi pods. The devices will start to absorb the pods and become part of the infrastructure themselves.

That’s our vision of Wi-Fi and how IoT/CHIP will merge. Then, there’s also Wi-Fi 6E. For 20 years, Wi-Fi has been running on 2 GHz and 5 GHz, but they’re running into a wall. Wi-Fi 6E, with the tremendous amount of 6-GHz bandwidth it brings, will open things up again.

Wi-Fi和5G可以共存吗？

My expectation is that Wi-Fi and 5G will continue to coexist, because it’s just so close to how people perceive networking and connectivity. Indoors, in your house, with your own network and spectrum, no SIM card is required. And outdoors, with your phone, you need the infrastructure.

我认为蓝牙也将有很长的寿命，因为可以这么说，这是第三种心理经历。有室内和户外活动，第三个体验就是我所说的个人泡沫。蓝牙是您气泡的连通性。它将手表连接到手机，耳机与手机连接；您可以在个人泡沫中做各种各样的事情。如果我骑自行车，那么速度表在我的个人气泡中，由蓝牙连接。

So, all of these things, in my personal bubble, are connected. And that’s a third radio. In a way, I see Wi-Fi and CHIP merging as indoor wireless technology in license-free spectrum. I see 5G out there and Bluetooth out there. Of course, there will be new technologies and ideas. Nothing is static in this world. But there’s some logic in the three radios that we’re used to in our phones: a personal bubble, a local home network, and an outdoor 5G subscription network. And the three will coexist in one device.