ZIGBEE addressing scheme can support up to 65'535 nodes per coordinator, and multiple coordinators can be linked together to increase the overall size. This limit obviously is theoretical and does not guarantee proper operation of such a large network. Scalability will highly depend on the application requirements in terms of density, traffic LOAD and acceptable latency.

With little experimental material available for very large networks, it is however safe to assume that such big networks will be adequately organized into geographical clusters. BUILDING on the ongoing ZigBee Alliance’s work REGARDING IP gateways, ONE can also imagine linking several ZigBee networks through high-speed IP backbones that already exist in many environments.

ZigBee addressing scheme can support up to 65'535 nodes per coordinator, and multiple coordinators can be linked together to increase the overall size. This limit obviously is theoretical and does not guarantee proper operation of such a large network. Scalability will highly depend on the application requirements in terms of density, traffic load and acceptable latency.

With little experimental material available for very large networks, it is however safe to assume that such big networks will be adequately organized into geographical clusters. Building on the ongoing ZigBee Alliance’s work regarding IP gateways, one can also imagine linking several ZigBee networks through high-speed IP backbones that already exist in many environments.