The Internet of Things, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-fi Direct and Zigbee

Ericsson envisions a world of 50 billion connections within the current decade. Joe Decuir from CSR (Cambridge Silicon Radio ),which currently proposed to merge with Zoran to add connectivity on more consumer electronic devices, mentioned the following total addressable market by wireless application in his Bluetooth 4.0 report:

Wireless Application	Total Addressable Market
Phone accessories (internet / apps centric devices)	> 10 billion
Smart Energy (meters & displays). Which will drive	~ 1 billion
Home Automation (white goods and HVAC)	> 5 billion
Health, Wellness, Sports & Fitness	> 10 billion
Assisted Living	> 5 billion
Animal Tagging (food assurance)	~ 3 billion
Intelligent Transport Systems	>1 billion
M2M (Internet connected devices)	> 10 billion

There are 7 short range wireless technologies being applied to transfer voice, data, audio, and video. The following table lists applicable area to these technologies:

Short Range Wireless Technologies	Voice	Data	Audio	Video	State (Low bandwidth, latency data, and power)
Bluetooth ACL / HS		Y	Y
Bluetooth SCO/eSCO	Y
Bluetooth low energy					Y
Wi-Fi	Y	Y	Y	Y
Wi-Fi Direct	Y	Y	Y
ZigBee					Y
ANT					Y

ZigBee Smart Energy 2.0 was selected by the US Department of Energy and the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) as an initial interoperable standard for HAN (Home Access Network) in 2009, allowing ZigBee to spur development in HAN environment. Efforts of ZigBee chipmakers such as TI, Ember, and Freescale have pushed the development of the Internet Of Things in terms of applications and strategies.

As a new comer, Bluetooth 4.0 is an upgrade from Bluetooth 3.0 that includes a power-saving feature called "low-energy technology. Bluetooth 4.0 is promising speedy device-to-device transfers over long distances. Ian Paul made comparison between Wi-fi Direct and Bluetooth 4.0. Joe Decuir also compared Zigbee and Bluetooth 4.0. A biggest advantage of Bluetooth over Zigbee is that its commanding presence in several existing markets: mobile phones, automobiles, consumer electronics, PC industry. With Bluetooth 4.0, Don Park predicted that the smartphone automatic shared-interest app will get its best shot yet, very soon.