The Book’s Structure
This book is designed to be read from cover-to-cover, tutorial style. Each chapter
introduces concepts that are used in later chapters. However, the reader is encouraged to
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skip ahead if the concepts of any section are already familiar. To keep the reader oriented
in each section, some overlap is necessary.
While it is not required, it is helpful to have the ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4 specifications
available when reading this book. I’ll sometimes refer to a section or a concept in those
specifications for further reading.
To obtain the ZigBee specification, go to http://www.zigbee.org and click on “ Download
the Specification. ” It is free, and comes in PDF format.
Go to http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/802.15.html and select “ IEEE 802.15.2-2003 ”
to obtain the 802.15.4 standard in PDF format. There is a new draft standard, IEEE
802.15.2-2006, but ZigBee does not currently use that specification.
The chapters are organized as follows.
Chapter 1, “ Hello ZigBee, ” lays out the basics of ZigBee and its intended use. It describes
the ZigBee Alliance, which is the standards body which defines and promotes the ZigBee
standard worldwide. This chapter also provides the developer with several ZigBee
networking examples, complete with source code.
Chapter 2, “ Deciding on ZigBee, ” helps the developer make technical and marketing
choices about ZigBee, and even helps determine whether ZigBee is the right solution
for any given problem. It provides a concise checklist, with all of the ZigBee factors
that must be considered throughout the entire product life cycle, from inception through
development, deployment, and maintenance.
Chapter 3, “ The ZigBee Development Environment, ” covers the basics of the ZigBee
development environment, and walks the reader through an example, step-by-step, to
help gain a full understanding of what’s involved in the development and debug phase.
This chapter contains information necessary if the reader plans to follow along with the
examples using actual hardware.
Chapter 4, “ ZigBee Applications, ” goes in-depth into application development, including
the fundamentals of ZigBee networks, nodes, addressing, Application Profiles, and the
features provided to the application by the Application Framework (AF) and Application
Support Sub-layer (APS).
Chapter 5, “ ZigBee, ZDO, and ZDP, ” describes the ZigBee Device Object (ZDO) and
how it interacts with and is used by applications, including how to achieve maximum
battery life from ZigBee nodes.
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Chapter 6, “ The ZigBee Cluster Library, ” covers the library of common clusters used for
profile and device development. It describes Home Automation in some detail.
Chapter 7, “ The ZigBee Networking Layer, ” goes in-depth into how ZigBee actually
delivers packets from one node to another, including mesh and tree networking. It also
discusses some of the table management that must occur for ZigBee nodes to last for
years (and decades) in the field with no required maintenance. This chapter also describes
security in detail.
Chapter 8, “ Commissioning ZigBee Networks, ” describes the commissioning process
with ZigBee. This topic is critical to the successful deployment and maintenance of
ZigBee networks.
Chapter 9, “ ZigBee Gateways, ” introduces gateways and describes techniques for
retrieving information from a ZigBee network, as well as controlling and configuring
sensors and actuators from outside the ZigBee network.
Appendix A, “ ZigBee 2007 and ZigBee Pro, ” is a quick reference to the ZigBee
application API.
Appendix B, “ ZigBee Quick Reference, ” is a quick reference to ZigBee architecture and
commands.
Appendix C, “ ZigBee Cluster Library Quick Reference, ” covers some of the new features
in ZigBee to be found in the upcoming ZigBee 2007, a specification that was not quite
ready for publication at the time of this writing.
