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Build a Thread network with Nordic nRF52840

blog.makerdiary.com

45 pointskfihihc5 comments

Article should be titled “how to use a preexisiting CLI”. I’ve been way (WAY) in the weeds with BLE over GATT and it’s limitations. Using a CLI they give you isn’t really even close to the same thing - works great until it doesn’t.

Starting the project right now, I would consider Thread to just use data over IP but for a single device and a phone interface there just doesn’t seem to be a ease of use like traditional connect-and-go.

For example, waiting “about a minute” for the device to show up with an IPv6 address - fine if it’s a lightbulb, deal breaker if it’s a user device they just turned on and want to access.

I’ve worked with ZigBee, Bluetooth and Thread. Using IP traffic over Thread was great.

ZigBee is moving in the same direction with DotDot, but I found Thread’s agnosticism (in regards to application layer traffic) to be refreshing. Bluetooth’s mesh is very, very immature, at least what they have released so far.

Is DotDot intended to replace the ZigBee application layer? (commands and attributes) If so is it also lightweight? By the way I don't get why they call it "open" when you have to be part of the alliance before you can access the specifications.

Yes, DotDot is a mapping of the ZCL onto CoAP, and is carried over IPv6. It is essentially the separation of ZigBee’s networking later from their application layer.

ZCL is not exactly RESTful, so running it with URIs over CoAP is still a little weird. It’s main advantage is being able to run all the same application code on your devices, regardless of networking (WiFi, Thread, BT, or ZigBee).

I don’t know how that will turn out in practice, but ZCL has wide adoption, and Thread required you to develop your own application layer. So, it has great potential, I guess.

The agnosticism may be refreshing for some use cases but for things like interoperable home automation the lack of an application layer associated with thread makes it useless to design into a product at this point as there is no real open ecosystem around the technology.

The fact that ZigBee (application layer) requires data to go through a gateway via a standard before hitting some server on the internet is probably a very good thing for pushing interoperability. What you see with IP bulbs is that each bulb hits its own servers on the internet -- when that business disappears in a few years, the customer is probably SOL.

ZigBee app layer on Thread (DotDot) will probably be pushed more. Just a question of whether the advantages of Thread over Zigbee (3) will have enough benefits to push ecosystems like home automation to switch over to this stack.

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