802.15.4 and ZigBee

The 802.15.4 standard is a low-speed WPAN technology that operates in the 868/915 MHz and the 2.4 GHz bands. ZigBee is an alliance of corporations seeking to provide the applications and networking layer for the 802.15.4 MAC. ZigBee has low power consumption and low data rates and is secure and reliable. This is a promising standard for remote monitoring and control applications where devices don’t need to send large amounts of data. ZigBee is named for the zigzagging flight of bees, which, like the nodes on a 802.15.4 network, are simple individually but can accomplish complex tasks when combined.