Question 1 :- What is Z wave ?

Collect all
possible information on Z wave Protocol,
Architecture and Applications and Comparison
of Z wave with Zigbee.

ANS=
Z-Wave is a wireless communication protocol used primarily
in smart home networks, allowing smart devices to connect and
exchange control commands and data with each other.

With two-way communication through mesh networking and

message acknowledgment, the Z-Wave protocol helps alleviate
power issues and brings low-cost wireless connectivity to home
automation, offering a lower-power alternative to Wi-Fi and a
longer-range alternative to Bluetooth.

How Z-Wave works :-

A Z-Wave network consists of internet of things (IoT) devices and a
primary controller, also known as a smart home hub, which is the
only device in a Z-Wave network that is usually connected to the
internet. When a Z-Wave hub receives a command from a smart
home application on a user's smartphone, tablet or computer, it
routes the command to its destination device across networks of
up to 232 devices -- including the hub.

Using source-routed mesh network technology, Z-Wave signals can

hop through other Z-Wave devices to reach the device a user
intends to control. Each Z-Wave network accommodates a
maximum of four hops.
The Z-Wave protocol operates on the low-frequency 908.42 band in
the U.S. and the 868.42 MHz band in Europe. Though interference
with other home electronics, such as cordless phones, is possible,
the protocol avoids interference with the 2.4 GHz band where Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth operate.

Z-Wave offers transmission rates of small data packets using

throughput rates of 9.6 kbps, 40 kbps or 100 kbps. The Z-Wave PHY
and MAC layers are based on the ITU-T G.9959 global radio
standard, and the protocol uses GFSK modulation and Manchester
encoding. It also includes AES 128 encryption, IPv6 and
multichannel operation.

In terms of identification and authorization, each Z-Wave network is

identified by a network ID and each end device is identified with a
node ID. The unique network ID prevents, for example, one Z-Wave-
equipped house from controlling devices in another similarly
equipped house.

Communication between devices ranges from 98 to 328 feet; the

500 Series has a range of 130 feet and the 700 Series 328 feet.
Because walls and other dense building materials limit the range,
the general deployment best practice is to place Z-Wave devices 50
feet or fewer apart for maximum signal strength.

Using a Z-Wave repeater -- an additional Z-Wave device between

other devices -- or using line-powered -- not battery-powered --
devices in the network can also strengthen the signal and help it
reach its destination. The maximum range with four hops is
estimated to be 600 feet.

In regards to battery life, some 700 Series Z-Wave devices can last
up to 10 years on a coin cell battery, while many other battery-
powered devices last a year or longer.

All Z-Wave technology is backward-compatible.

To bear the Z-Wave branding, smart home products must become
Z-Wave certified. This involves meeting a number of requirements
and, most importantly, being interoperable with all other Z-Wave-
certified devices.

Z-Wave adoption and popularity:-

In 2002, a reported six Z-Wave-certified devices were available on

the market. In 2012, that number rose to 1,000. Currently, in 2018,
more than 2,400 Z-Wave-certified devices are available from the
more than 700 members of the Z-Wave Alliance.

Z-Wave's website claims it has the largest selection of smart

products available across widely recognized brands, and that more
than 100 million Z-Wave protocols have been sold for smart homes
worldwide.

Today, Z-Wave-certified devices are used for remote control and

management in a variety of smart home and IoT devices and
applications, including smart thermostats, smart locks, smart
lighting, smart sensors, smart plugs and outlets, and smart home
hubs.

Z-Wave-certified products are available from brands including ADT,

GE, Honeywell, Kwikset, Schlage and SmartThings.

Z-Wave security :-
Early on, Z-Wave had a bad security reputation. While it offered
AES encryption, there were a number of security incidents
involving Z-Wave largely due to implementation errors by
manufacturers or manufacturers not using the recommended
security in the first place.

In a 2013 Black Hat presentation, hackers demonstrated how to use

the Z-Force packet interception and injection tool to identify a
critical implementation vulnerability in the Z-Wave security layer.
They showed how to compromise an AES-encrypted Z-Wave door
lock, which turned out not to be a flaw introduced by Z-Wave, but
by the door lock manufacturer. In response, Sigma Designs added
additional security test cases to its certification processes.

In a 2016 ShmooCon presentation, two hackers demonstrated how

the open source EZ-Wave penetration testing tool could be used to
destroy lights and physically damage Z-Wave-certified devices. In
their research, the hackers found that only nine of the 33 devices
they tested supported AES. In turn, the Z-Wave Alliance made AES
128 encryption mandatory for a device to become certified.

The Z-Wave Alliance mandated Z-Wave-certified devices follow the

Security 2 (S2) framework beginning in April 2017. This modified
the process from a three-step process in the previous S0
framework to a one-step process in S2.

In an attempt to mitigate man-in-the-middle, distributed denial-of-

service and brute-force attacks against Z-Wave devices, S2 uses
elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman cryptography and requires a QR or PIN
code at the device level for authentication. S2 also implements
strengthened cloud communication by tunneling all Z-Wave over IP
traffic through a secure TLS 1.1 tunnel.

In May 2018, researchers from Pen Test Partners found a five-year-

old software vulnerability in the Z-Wave protocol dubbed Z-Shave,
which affected an estimated 100 million SoCs in smart home
devices manufactured by more than 2,400 vendors.

In the attack, one device is tricked into believing the other does not
support Z-Wave's S2 framework, so it downgrades the device's
security to the S0 framework for compatibility. As S0 uses a
hardcoded encryption key, hackers in range can potentially
intercept communication and smart lock keys to unlock home
doors.

Silicon Labs refuted the ability of the attack, claiming that this
attack requires close physical proximity to the device during the
pairing process, which is done during initial installation or
reinstallation. This means the user would have to be present at the
time of the attack and would be made aware of a device running S0.
The company also stated that it is updating the specification to
ensure users get a warning any time a device is downgraded to S0.
The user would have to acknowledge and accept the warning to run
the system.

z-wave network :-
The z-wave network consists of controllers (one primary controller
and more than one secondary controllers) and slaves. Controller
devices are the nodes in a z-wave network which initiates control
commands. It also sends out the commands to other nodes. The
slave devices are the nodes which replies based on command
received and also execute the commands. Slave nodes also
forward the commands to other nodes in the network. This makes it
possible for controller to establish communication with the nodes
who are not in radio frequency region.

Controllers :-
A controller device will have full routing table for this mesh network
and it will host it. Hence controller can communicate with all the
nodes of z-wave network. There are two types of controllers viz.
primary and secondary.
The controller which creates new z-wave network initially will
become primary controller. This primary controller is master
controller in the network and there will be only one in each z-wave
network. Primary controller will have capability to include and
exclude the nodes in the network. Hence primary controller always
keeps latest topology of the network. Primary controller also takes
care of managing allocation of node IDs.

The controllers which are added to the z-wave network using the
primary controller are known as secondary controllers. They do not
have capability to include or exclude any nodes. They will get
copies of the routing tables from primary controller.

Slaves :-
The slave devices/nodes in z-wave network receive the commands
and performs action based on the commands. These slave nodes
are unable to transmit information directly to the other slave nodes
or controllers unless they are instructed to do so in the commands.
The slave nodes do not compute routing tables. They can store
routing tables. They will act as a repeater.

Home ID :-
The z-wave protocol uses Home ID field to separate the networks
from each other. It is 32 bit unique identifier which will be pre-
programmed in all the controller devices. At the start, all the slave
nodes will have Home ID value as zero. All the slave devices need
Home ID value in order to communicate in the z-wave network. This
will be communicated to all by the controller. Controllers exchange
Home ID which makes it possible for more than one controller to
control slave nodes.
Node ID :-
This node ID is 8 bit value. Similar to Home ID, they are also
assigned to slave nodes by controller. Node ID's are used in order
to address individual nodes in a z-wave network. These Node ID's
are unique within a network defined by a unique Home ID.

Applications of Z-wave technology :-

1.Smart Hubs :-
Smart hubs are the central controlling unit of every smart home
application. Wide range of appliances, devices, power plugs,
locking units, security systems, access control units, routers,
sensors and voice enabled applications can be connected and
configured using smart hubs.
Smart hubs will be connected to internet (using an Ethernet port or
using wireless LAN) and all devices can be accessed from
anywhere using an internet connection.

2. Smart Lighting :-

Smart lighting is one of the most commonly used applications of

smart home technologies like Z-wave. Light intensity can be
wirelessly controlled and configured using a mobile phone app
which can be accessed from anywhere.

3. Smart Sensors :-
Smart sensors are inevitable components of any smart home and
Internet of Things applications. Application areas of smart sensors
uses Z-wave technology are thermostats, humidity sensors,
proximity sensors, RF ID tags, motion detectors, water level and
flood sensors, smoke and gas sensors etc…

4. Security and Alarm :-

Z-wave provides smart solutions for Indoor and outdoor security,
monitoring systems and alarms. Temperature and smoke detectors
will continuously monitor and trigger alarms when the measured
level exceeds set threshold value.

6. Water management :-

Accurate water and flood sensors are used in water management

and smart city systems. Smart sensors will monitor water level
round the clock and triggers once the level exceeds.

▪️ Z-Wave vs. Zigbee :-

Z-Wave and Zigbee are two of the biggest names in smart home
communication protocols. Both use short-range, low-power radio
signals and mesh network technologies, and both are secured
using AES. However, there are some notable differences.

Z-Wave operates on the low-frequency 908.42 band while the

Zigbee protocol operates at 2.4 GHz. While the higher frequency
allows Zigbee to transmit more data faster -- 40-250 kbps to Z-
Wave's 9.6 to 100 kbps -- it reduces the range of the signal. Z-
Wave's range of 98 feet is greater than Zigbee's 32-foot range. As
an open standard run by the Zigbee Alliance, Zigbee chips are
available from multiple vendors, while Z-Wave chips are only
available from Silicon Labs.

Zigbee is often perceived as more complex due to its multiple

protocols; for example, it offers specifications for smart energy,
healthcare, gateways and more -- which historically do not
communicate well together. However, the release of Zigbee 3.0
aims to address this issue and address the complexity.

A Zigbee network, which doesn't have a maximum number of

allowed hops, can support more than 65,000 devices, while a Z-
Wave network, limited to four hops, supports a maximum of 232
devices.

Often considered an either/or situation, many smart home hubs

today, including Samsung SmartThings and Wink Hub, support
both standards, allowing Zigbee and Z-Wave devices to
communicate with each other, so there is no need to choose one
over the other.

Question 2 :- Gather all possible

information on LPWAN technologies,
namely LoRa technology including its
uses and SigFox & its applications.
ANS=

⚫ LPWAN Technology :-
 The network architecture of LPWAN

Low-power WAN (LPWAN) is a wireless wide area network

technology that interconnects low-bandwidth, battery-powered
devices with low bit rates over long ranges.

Created for machine-to-machine (M2M) and internet of things

(IoT) networks, LPWANs operate at a lower cost with greater power
efficiency than traditional mobile networks. They are also able to
support a greater number of connected devices over a larger area.

LPWANs can accommodate packet sizes from 10 to 1,000 bytes at

uplink speeds up to 200 Kbps. LPWAN's long range varies from 2
km to 1,000 km, depending on the technology.
Most LPWANs have a star topology where, similar to Wi-Fi, each
endpoint connects directly to common central access points.

LPWAN security :-
Different LPWAN technologies offer varying levels of security. Most
include device or subscriber authentication, network
authentication, identity protection, advanced standard encryption
(AES), message confidentiality and key provisioning.

The future of LPWAN :-

As a fairly new technology, the LPWAN landscape is constantly
changing and far from mature. With many players in the market, it
is unclear who the winner(s) will be, especially as the speed of
market expansion is also unknown. Long-term performance of each
LPWAN variation is also uncertain, as many are still in their initial
rollouts and real-world testing at scale has not yet been completed.

LPWAN applications :-
With decreased power requirements, longer ranges and lower costs
than traditional mobile networks, LPWANs enable a number of M2M
and IoT applications, many of which were previously constrained
by budgets and power issues.

LPWANs are best suited for applications requiring infrequent

uplink message delivery of smaller messages. Most LPWAN
technologies also have downlink capabilities.

LPWANs are commonly used in applications including Smart

metering, smart lighting, asset monitoring and tracking, smart
cities, precision agriculture, livestock monitoring, energy
management, manufacturing, and industrial IoT deployments.

⚫ LoRa Technology :-

LoRa technology was developed by a company called Semtech and it is

a new wireless protocol designed specifically for long-range, low-
power communications. LoRa stands for Long Range Radio and is
mainly targeted for M2M and IoT networks. This technology will enable
public or multi-tenant networks to connect a number of applications
running on the same network.
LoRa Alliance was formed to standardize LPWAN (Low Power Wide
Area Networks) for IoT and is a non-profit association which features
membership from a number of key market shareholders such as CISCO,
actility, MicroChip, IBM, STMicro, SEMTECH, Orange mobile and many
more. This alliance is key to providing interoperability among multiple
nationwide networks.
Each LoRa gateway has the ability to handle up to millions of nodes.
The signals can span a significant distance, which means that there is
less infrastructure required, making constructing a network much
cheaper and faster to implement.
LoRa also features an adaptive data rate algorithm to help maximize
the nodes battery life and network capacity. The LoRa protocol includes
a number of different layers including encryption at the network,
application and device level for secure communications.

Specification LoRa Feature

Range 2-5Km Urban (1.24-3.1 mi),

15Km suburban (9.3 mi)

Frequency ISM 868/915 MHz

Standard IEEE 802.15.4g

Modulation Spread spectrum modulation type

based on FM pulses which vary.

Capacity One LoRa gateway takes

thousands of nodes

Battery Long battery life

LoRa Physical layer Frequency, power, modulation

and signalling between nodes and
gateways
LoRa Technology Application :-
1. Air Pollution Monitoring
2. Agriculture Processing
3. Animal Tracking
4. Fire Detection
5. Fleet Tracking
6. Home Security
7. Indoor Air Quality
8. Industrial Temperature Monitoring
9. Assets Management
10.Predictive Maintenance
11.Radiation Leak Detection
12.Smart Lighting
13.Smart Parking
14.Waste Management
15.Water Flow Monitoring

⚫ SigFox Technology :-

Sigfox network architecture

Sigfox is a Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology
specially designed for the Internet of Things. Devices connected
using SigFox consume little power and operate over large
distances compared to WiFi and Bluetooth connection protocols
which consumemore power and work best in short range.The
chronology of a SigFox application follows these three basic steps:

1. Numerous objects (devices) connected to the Internet send

data through the SigFox network to a SigFox base station
(gateway).

2. The base station then detects, demodulates, and reports the

messages to the SigFox cloud across 3 channels, at least every
10 minutes.
3. The SigFox cloud then pushes these messages to many
 customer servers & IoT platforms based on the client’s
application.

Technically, the SigFox network differs from other LPWAN

networks in the methods it sends data and the electrical guidelines
that govern the quantity,speed, & duration of the data being sent.
SigFox is most used for low-power applications that only require
sending small amounts of data, infrequently, over large distances.
Perfect for Agro environments & asset management across vast
distances.

Sigfox is an inexpensive, reliable, low-power solution to connect

sensors and devices. With our dedicated radio-based network, we
are committed to giving a voice to the physical world, and make the
Internet of Things truly happen. 

The Sigfox protocol focuses on: 

1. Autonomy. Extremely low energy consumption, allowing

years of battery life.
2. Simplicity. No configuration, connection request or signaling.
Your device is up and running within minutes!
3. Cost efficiency. From the hardware used in the devices to our
network, we optimize every step to be as cost-effective as
possible.
4. Small messages. No large assets or media allowed on the
network, only small notifications: up to 12 bytes.
5. Complementarity. Thanks to its low cost and ease of
configuration, you can also use Sigfox as a secondary
solution to any other type of network, e.g.: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth,
GPRS, etc.
SigFox Applications :-
The SigFox network and technology is aimed at the low cost
machine to machine application areas where wide area
coverage is required. There are a number of applications that
need this form of low cost wireless communications technology.
Areas where the SigFox network may be used include :

1. Home and consumer goods.

2. Energy related communications - in particular
smart metering.
3. Healthcare - in particular the mHealth
applications that are starting to be developed.
4. Transportation - this can include the automotive
management.
5. Remote monitoring and control.
6. Retail including point of sale, shelf updating, etc.
7. Security.