Any idea when the 900Mhz ZigBee products might be out?
Thanks,
I have one sort-of product.
As far as I can find, ZMD is the only chip for 802.15.4 in the “sub-1-GHz” as they call it, as compared to the majority - modules and chips for 2.4GHz.
902-928 is unlicensed in No. America but not in the EU or Asia.
868MHz is used in some parts of the EU but there’s only one 2MHz channel now. The EU approved more, but each EU member must approve and that takes years. (802.15.4 has specs for 868MHz, 900MHz and 2.4GHz. The low freqs are each different speeds and modulation methods).
What I have and am working with is a ZMD-based demo kit for 900MHz. It’s only 1mW though. And no ZigBee. I did find a couple of module makers using the ZMD chip on 900MHz, but they aren’t yet using ZigBee.
So 1mW at 900MHz has less range than 60mW at 2.4GHz which is what I prefer to use, so the link budget has lots of margin. I find no one intending to build 802.15.4 chips/modules with a power amp for more than 1mW.
Apparently Renasas is the source for a ZigBee stack to integrate with ZMD’s chip. I have emailed with several module makers of sub-1GHz but only ZMD seems serious. I’m not interested in 868MHz because of the few channels and it’s not an ISM band in the US.
I am starting to look at 802.15.4(a) which is out now. Probably long time for chips.