According to ABI Research, smart-homes, wearables, energy management, smart cities and other nascent IoT applications will propel the wireless IoT connectivity market forward.
The market’s trend toward multi-protocol connectivity IC adoption will ease development time, boost scale, and reduce complexity and cost for manufacturers across these different sectors in the years ahead
.“2015 witnessed a growing trend toward the development of multiprotocol connectivity for the IoT, some of which support both Bluetooth Smart and 802.15.4,” said Andrew Zignani, Industry Analyst at ABI Research. “Devices that incorporate multiprotocol chipsets will be more futureproof. While a product might utilise Bluetooth in the short-term, a device manufacturer may want to switch to Thread in the future, or have the ability to talk to multiple connectivity protocols once deployed.”
Moving forward, it might not be a case of either Bluetooth or ZigBee or Thread, but rather utilising a combination of these technologies in a single device.
ABI Research also expects to see a growing presence of smart-home hubs that incorporate multiple connectivity solutions such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Smart, Z-Wave and 802.15.4 (ZigBee/Thread). These solutions will have a significant role to play in the development and consolidation of wireless connectivity solutions for the smart-home.
ABI Research forecasts that Bluetooth smart home devices will show a 75% growth rate between 2016 and 2021, though 802.15.4-based ZigBee and Thread will lead with 34% volume share of the home automation and 29% of the smart-lighting markets by this time. 802.15.4 will also see growth in smart-metering, building-automation, industrial and street-lighting markets, accounting for almost one third of 802.15.4 shipments by 2021.
A majority of fitness and activity trackers are utilizing Bluetooth Smart, with the solution extending to medical applications moving forward. It also promises significant opportunity for beacons across numerous verticals, such as retail and advertising, with ABI Research forecasting a 129% growth rate between 2016 and 2021.
“Wi-Fi HaLow, or 802.11ah, operating in the sub-1GHz band will be of increasing importance for the Wi-Fi Alliance and chipset suppliers over the coming years as it tries to target various IoT verticals with low-power requirements,” concluded Zignani. “These solutions will also face new challenges from LPWAN technologies, such as Sigfox and LoRa, but most importantly, by emerging cellular technologies, such as NB-IOT and eMTC.”
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