EnOcean is a new wireless intelligent control system that does not require power supply and wiring

    In the future, hundreds of millions of wireless devices will be connected to the huge "Internet of Things" system. On the one hand, wireless communication terminal devices are growing explosively. According to Cisco statistics, there were nearly 7.8 billion wireless communication terminal devices in the world in 2013, and it is expected that by 2017, there will be more than 10 billion. As a result, the demand for wireless communication in consumer terminal products such as smart phones, tablets, and M2M will rise sharply; on the other hand, with the rise of concepts such as smart cities, smart buildings, smart homes, and smart families, the demand for wireless technology in monitoring and management systems for office buildings, factories, and residences is also rising rapidly. From an energy perspective, buildings consume 41% of the world's total energy each year, and buildings using smart building systems can save 30% of energy. In this case, if there is a wireless communication technology that can solve the power supply problem of these devices while realizing the ultra-low power design, intelligent control systems, sensor networks, etc. do not need battery/power supply and supporting wiring, then the annual global energy consumption and loss will be greatly reduced. The new wireless communication technology EnOcean is the only wireless international standard in the world that uses energy harvesting technology, which well meets the functional requirements of ultra-low power consumption and energy saving as well as easy installation and maintenance.

　　

 

　　Figure 1: Development of the global wireless communication terminal equipment market from 2012 to 2017.

　EnOcean's technical advantages and features

　　EnOcean wireless communication protocol is a wireless sensor solution that can provide low-power data transmission without power and wires. Currently, there are four frequency bands in use: 868.3MHz (Europe, China), 315MHz (North America, China), 902MHz (North America), and 928MHz (Japan). Its working principle is to collect tiny energy (mechanical energy, light energy/solar energy, temperature difference energy, etc.) existing in nature and convert it into electricity, and use tiny electricity plus ultra-low power main chip and wireless transmission protocol designed for energy saving to realize wireless communication functions.

　　The protocol was first proposed by Germany's EnOcean company, and the EnOcean Alliance was established to promote it. Currently, the alliance has more than 350 member companies, including Siemens, Honeywell, Leviton, Texas Instruments, ABB, General Electric, Osram, Tsinghua Tongfang, Rohm, Omron, Somfy, WAGO, etc. Members are divided into three types: initiators, participants, and collaborators. Graham Martin, the current CEO and chairman of the alliance, is the former chairman of the ZigBee Alliance.

　　

 

　　Different wireless communication technologies have their own advantages and best application areas. As shown in the table above, WiFi is very suitable for the transmission of large amounts of data, and can enable computers, notebooks, tablets, mobile phones, etc. to communicate directly; Bluetooth is a short-range wireless communication technology and is widely used in mobile phones, headphones, notebooks, printers, PDAs, and wearable electronic devices that have been very popular in the past year; Z-Wave has been successfully used in simple and separate systems in civilian housing; ZigBee is currently mainly used in short-range smart meter reading, RF4CE (point to point RC) and household smart switches. Devices based on the above wireless communication protocols require power/battery power supply. In comparison, EnOcean is very suitable for applications such as smart homes, smart buildings, smart meter reading, and industrial control. All wireless switches and sensors that support the EnOcean protocol do not require batteries, power supply, and the corresponding power cords. The entire communication system is truly free of data cables, power cords, and batteries. In addition, EnOcean's indoor transmission distance is up to 30m (up to 100m with a repeater), and the transmission distance in open areas is 300m.

　　"Compared with wireless technologies such as ZigBee, WiFi, Bluetooth, and Z-Wave, the biggest advantages of this technology are self-generation, almost maintenance-free, extremely low power consumption, and long transmission distance." said a relevant person from ROHM, a founding member of the EnOcean Alliance and the first founding member from Asia, dedicated to wireless communication technology and component technology. EnOcean's current mainstream application area is smart buildings. The advantages of using this passive wireless green solution are: no wiring is required, no construction waste and noise are achieved, and the normal operation of the building is not affected during construction; no batteries are required, eliminating the need for later maintenance and environmental pollution; convenient and unlimited installation, simple construction and installation, ordinary electricians can complete it, no special qualifications are required, renovating a room is faster than cleaning a room, the layout of the equipment and the engineering design can be changed at any time, the switch panel position is no longer restricted by the drawings, and can be changed at any time according to the specific requirements of the owner during the later decoration; the wireless communication technology is stable, has strong anti-interference ability, and is maintenance-free.

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