Comparative Evaluation of the Performance of ZigBee and LoRa Wireless Networks in Building Environment

Abstract

ZigBee and LoRa are communication technologies widely used in the application of the Internet of things (IoT), especially in the field of smart building environmental monitoring. The main purpose of this study is to compare and analyze the transmission performance of ZigBee and LoRa wireless communication networks in the building. Through two indicators of packet loss rate (PLR) and round-trip time (RTT), this paper discusses in detail the transmission performance of ZigBee and LoRa technologies in whole buildings under the same working conditions. We set up three experimental scenarios of line-of-sight, horizontal and vertical to evaluate the communication performance of these two networks by changing the baud rate and packet length, and cost and power consumption were considered. Experiments have shown that LoRa networks outperform ZigBee networks in most cases and are the best choice for building communication networks. The experimental results provide basic data support and engineering reference for the application of these two technologies in buildings, especially for the deployment of communication networks throughout buildings. The innovation and contribution of this paper are to discuss the effect of packet length, baud rate, distance, and different locations within a building on the performance of ZigBee and LoRa transmissions, using RTT and PLR as metrics through three experimental scenarios.