A Performance Study of Zig Bee Broadcasts in Coexistence with Wi-Fi

ZigBee is widely used in different low-cost, low-power applications. The performance of a ZigBee network drops when its channel is covered by one or more Wi-Fi networks. This paper firstly introduces an interference benchmarking index, Clear Channel Rate, in order to quantitatively measure the in-channel Wi-Fi interference level. Experimental results are then presented to show how the transmission power of the ZigBee nodes impacts on the broadcast performance when the network coexists with Wi-Fi on the same channel. A further test and its analysis explain the mechanism behind the phenomena. Based on the results, a higher transmission power of all ZigBee nodes, or only a higher transmission power of the ZigBee initiator node, is recommended to enhance the reliability of the ZigBee broadcast when the network coexists with Wi-Fi. These results can be used as a design guideline for ZigBee networks.