What is a ZigBee Software Profile?

If you’re common with ZigBee, you’ve no doubt witnessed a image of the stack with IEEE 802.15.4 at the bottom, ZigBee in the middle, and purposes and profiles sitting down on prime. This short article seems to be at the best bit of the stack, and at how ZigBee profiles make it less difficult for you to produce your have interoperable programs.

ZigBee is an open up conventional, which is perfect for purposes that need extensive battery existence, minimal charge, tiny footprint, and mesh networking to guidance conversation among massive quantities of products in an interoperable and multi-software setting.

A single of the methods interoperability is realized is by way of application profiles. These profiles are described by the ZigBee Alliance, and offer a description of the gadgets supported for a precise software together with the messaging scheme used by those gadgets for communication–in outcome, defining the type, form and functions of the community.

Adherence to these profiles assures the interoperability of distinctive distributors for the exact software room.

Every application profile addresses the wants of a certain software industry. Profiles are at present readily available or in advancement for the subsequent sorts of applications:

• Good Energy
• Household Automation
• Telecom Apps
• Professional Building Automation
• Individual Residence and Hospital Care

Endpoints and clusters

Devices are described by profiles and implemented as application objects. Each software object is connected to the rest of the ZigBee stack by an endpoint, which is an addressable part inside of a system.

For illustration, a distant handle may well allocate endpoint 6 for the manage of lights in the learn bedroom, endpoint 8 to manage the heating and air-conditioning process, and endpoint 12 for managing the stability process. This makes it possible for the distant handle to independently connect with these equipment and detect which packets are supposed for each software and system.

Interaction is manufactured from endpoint to endpoint by way of information buildings known as clusters. Clusters comprise a set of attributes that represent system state jointly with commands that enable conversation between application objects. Each and every cluster is determined with a exclusive ID.

Clusters made use of in a certain software are described in its profile. For illustration, the House Automation profile is made up of a cluster focused to the handle of lights subsystems.

Each cluster has two finishes:

• The shopper/output requests and manipulates the facts.
• The server/enter has the supply details.

The ZigBee Cluster Library (ZCL)

All ZigBee software profiles are outlined working with clusters from the ZigBee Cluster Library.

This library makes it possible for prevalent clusters to be reused across a selection of unique functional domains, for instance, the same lights clusters can be utilized for any software that needs lights handle, such as property automation and business making automation.

Clusters in the ZCL are organized into a amount of different useful domains, which include Lights, HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning), Measurement and Sensing, Safety and Security, and Normal.

Just about every cluster specification within the ZigBee Cluster Library defines

• necessary and optional attributes
• cluster-certain instructions
• useful description

Every single machine specification in just an software profile defines

• required and optional cluster use
• values of totally free parameters in the ZCL
• any more purposeful description

Bindings

At a large amount, binding is the method of creating a relationship between two equipment that can talk in a significant way, for instance, which change controls which lights. Each individual binding supports a certain application profile, and just about every message style is represented by a cluster inside of that profile.

Bindings can be created concerning both individual or teams of endpoints, these kinds of as lights and switches, that have matching enter and output clusters (with the similar cluster ID). ZigBee units can have up to 240 endpoints, so each individual actual physical machine can support several bindings.

Conclusion

By giving the ZigBee Cluster Library and application profiles, the ZigBee Alliance has already completed a great deal of the really hard work for you.

If you have to have your product to complete a unique purpose or behave a specific way, there is no will need to build factors from scratch. You can basically put into action the ZigBee cluster that currently exists for that function.

Adherence to the software profiles and the ZCL also assists to obtain ZigBee certification to make sure interoperability with other ZigBee units.