Zigbee goes to Mars

General Discussion
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So interesting stuff about Zigbee, as it is used in the latest Mars rover, Perseverance.

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Ohh the Zigbee

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We can start another discussion about that clownshoes. But flooding a 2.4Ghz network by wifi devices make sense, I guess… (Just find the AP first which can handle them.)

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Don’t worry, I’m firmly in the Zigbee/Zwave camp. If it’s good enough for NASA it should be good enough for your house.

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Interestingly, they are not using the 2.4 gigahertz version, but rather the 900 MHz version, which is a regional frequency not used much.

It’s also mostly a proof of concept project, using all off-the-shelf consumer products. That may have been intentional, to lead into school projects that could easily replicate it. :sunglasses:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/aerospace/robotic-exploration/nasa-designed-perseverance-helicopter-rover-fly-autonomously-mars

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Also, the interviewer in the article 1st linked to “knows just enough to be dangerous,” as they say… :wink: Most of the questions don’t really make any sense technically. Which probably explains why the table included in the article doesn’t apply to this particular project since it’s about the wrong frequency.

And why the interviewer seems to think that it’s mesh that is giving the wider range when of course it isn’t mesh on the surface of Mars: there aren’t any Repeaters in territory you’ve never explored before.

The Advantage of Zigbee for the Mars project is that it’s very low power, which is a critical advantage, and the devices were already commercially available.

The questions about security and zigbee in the context of Amazon’s sidewalk project were similarly simply not applicable.

The person being interviewed did an exceptional job of providing an answer that would be interesting for the audience while sidestepping all of the stuff that just didn’t make any sense in the question. Most impressive. :sunglasses:

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