Many low-power wireless interfaces and protocols such as Bluetooth low energy, ZigBee, Thread, and others are popular for smart home and smart industry sensor mesh applications. However, as developers are finding out, these RF protocols were designed before the Internet of Things (IoT) became a reality, and as such typically lack interoperability with Internet protocols (IPs) IPv4 and IPv6 making it challenging to connect designs to the IoT for smart sensing, automation, and control.

There are ways around this IP interoperability issue, such as transforming packets or using an IP-compatible wireless interface. The first option is inefficient, and the second narrows designers’ options to Wi-Fi.

This article will focus on a third option: IoT gateways. These serve as network aggregators and often come with advanced security and multiple I/O options for backhaul. The article will describe their function and characteristics before introducing suitable solutions and how to get the most out of them.