ArticCynda
Advanced Member level 1
Hi,
For an upcoming project, I need to be able to connect around 100 devices wirelessly to a gateway. The area is indoor and the size of an average movie theater room. All devices should be connected (pseudo)simultaneously, but the packet size is very small (few dozens of bytes per second). I'm still unsure about the best wireless technology to use in this application. Cost is the primary limiting factor, but it also needs to be low power (running from a tiny battery).
Wifi seems to be overkill, because it drains the battery too fast (excessive transmission power and bandwidth I don't need). A possible candidate would be BLE, but since BLE only supports ca. 35 channels, I fear that this would cause constant channel hopping by all the devices, leading to immediate fatal congestion. Will this indeed be a problem? Or may BLE be able to handle 100 devices simultaneously at low data throughput? Which other alternatives could be considered?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
For an upcoming project, I need to be able to connect around 100 devices wirelessly to a gateway. The area is indoor and the size of an average movie theater room. All devices should be connected (pseudo)simultaneously, but the packet size is very small (few dozens of bytes per second). I'm still unsure about the best wireless technology to use in this application. Cost is the primary limiting factor, but it also needs to be low power (running from a tiny battery).
Wifi seems to be overkill, because it drains the battery too fast (excessive transmission power and bandwidth I don't need). A possible candidate would be BLE, but since BLE only supports ca. 35 channels, I fear that this would cause constant channel hopping by all the devices, leading to immediate fatal congestion. Will this indeed be a problem? Or may BLE be able to handle 100 devices simultaneously at low data throughput? Which other alternatives could be considered?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!