Introduction
NB-IoT (narrowband IoT) combines low power consumption, low cost, and wide coverage, meeting the needs of battery-powered devices that send small amounts of data. It is increasingly applied across the IoT industry. As indoor coverage improves, device costs fall, and energy use decreases, the smart home industry has begun exploring NB-IoT. On July 27, Haier led an industry effort to define the first smart home NB-IoT standard and published an NB-IoT solution named NB-UHomeKit, demonstrating three complete commercial NB-IoT deployments covering smart appliances, smart communities, and commercial appliances. The following is an edited transcript of an interview with Fan Jiqing, U+ development director, on how NB-IoT integrates with smart homes.
1. Technical background
Director Fan began by introducing the development of NB-IoT technology. Wireless communication has advanced rapidly in recent years due to its convenience and speed. As network services have become richer, terminal information-processing capabilities have increased, enabling mobile office, mobile shopping, and the entry of smart appliances and smart homes into everyday life. Common wireless technologies for smart appliances and smart homes include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and cellular mobile communications. As smart requirements rise and device types multiply, demands have diversified. High data rates are addressed by 3G and 4G systems, medium rates by 2G, but there has been no mature low-power cellular standard for low data-rate applications. 4G, 3G, and 2G do not meet the combined requirements of low power, low cost, wide coverage, and large capacity. Alternatives such as LoRa, Sigfox, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee have limitations in information security, mobility, coverage, and capacity.
To meet IoT development demands, the narrowband IoT communication standard was developed.
2. Challenges faced by the smart home industry
China's smart home market has reached a certain scale, but for many ordinary consumers the convenience provided by smart homes remains an enhancement rather than a necessity. Director Fan summarized four main challenges faced by the industry.
(a) Ease of use
The goal of smart homes is to make life easier and more enjoyable. However, due to technical complexity, setting up, pairing, and using many smart appliances and systems can be difficult. What should be a more convenient lifestyle can become frustrating because of complex operations, significantly degrading user experience.
Making operation simpler and designing functions that users accept and rely on is the first challenge for the industry.
(b) Network capacity and signal coverage
Home environments vary widely. When the number of smart devices grows beyond a certain point, mutual interference can affect device communication and normal use. Large homes such as duplexes or villas raise coverage challenges, and devices in dead zones such as balconies or bathrooms, including water heaters and washing machines, can be difficult to connect or communicate reliably.
(c) Security risks
Network security is a concern for all communications industries, and smart homes are no exception. Balancing convenience and security is a challenge manufacturers must address.
(d) Fragmented standards
Immature standards mean devices from different brands often cannot recognize or interoperate with each other. In a user's home, a smart appliance is a device; in the user's hands, it is an app; behind it lies a complex cloud platform service system. Designing and developing smart appliances requires significant investment and long cycles before results are realized, which poses a major challenge for small and medium-sized companies.
According to Director Fan, the industry must collectively face these challenges and deliver simple, useful smart appliances and systems.
3. NB-IoT solution — NB-UHomeKit
The NB-IoT standard provides a good solution for low data-rate, low-power, wide-area applications and complements existing device access technologies. Haier U+ designed a complete NB-IoT access solution, NB-UHomeKit, based on NB-IoT characteristics and its experience in smart appliances and smart homes, and made it available for industry use.
Director Fan provided details on the NB-UHomeKit open application solution. NB-UHomeKit is a solution and protocol standard for integrating NB-IoT devices into the U+ platform to support smart appliance and home applications.
NB-UHomeKit components include a device-side SDK, a client SDK, and an M2M access gateway.
NB-UHomeKit technical advantages include the following:
- Custom compression algorithm to reconcile NB-IoT's limited data throughput with smart home big data requirements.
- Custom data collection algorithms to address NB-IoT's low data rates while meeting smart home real-time needs.
- Standardized protocols to enable interoperability.
- Compliance with national security standards to balance security requirements with ease of use.
