[MUSIC PLAYING]

Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Connect. My name's Nick. We have a really cool topic today. We're here with Kelsey. She's an expert on our Software R&D team. She's going to talk a little bit about our subgig stack and some of the testing that we do. Thanks for joining us, Kelsey.

Of course, Nick. Before I talk sub-1 gigahertz, I'd ask you to take a step back and consider what it would take to create your own sub-1 gigahertz network. You'd have to consider the different modulation types. You'd have to manage collisions between different packets, deal with the Carrier Sense Multiple Access, CSMA, and figure out how to recover data if there have been any dropped packets.

And so what you're saying is that in the subgig space, there's really no standard, right? In BLE or Zigbee or Wi-Fi, there's industry-adopted standards, is that correct?

Yeah, so in sub-1 gigahertz, there's no standard. So TI makes that investment for all of our customers so that they can kickstart their application development.

So TI is in this subgig space, and they created this stack. From what you're saying, it sounds like a lot of work to start in the subgig space with no standard, and then build up a stack from scratch. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Absolutely. We save our customers months of development time so they can focus on their application, rather than worrying about the nitty-gritty details of the MAC layer, the PHY layer, and the layers listed on the whiteboard here.

OK, so we basically deliver a stack solution that includes the PHY, the MAC, and some other application-- or, your application layer sits on top of that, and we add in some other components, saving them time from starting from scratch, and building their own network up. And now, if you're building a network, what kind of things make a good or robust network? What kind of things do you have to think about?

It really depends on your particular application. If you have, for example, a door that needs to open every 0.5 seconds and you need a really quick response time, that type of network's going to look completely different from a network where you have low power requirements, where your batteries can only last so long, and you need the sensors to go to sleep as long as possible.

The great part is you don't have to be an RF expert, because we make that investment for you, putting in our time to allow you to focus on what is your actual application, instead of worrying about when should I put the sensors to sleep? When should I send this packet? When should I handle all the modulation?

So we're basically saying, hey, here's our subgig stack. You take this. Focus on the application you're developing. We've done the hard work of building a good network. Here, take it and use it.

Exactly. And a good network is completely dependent on your application. Some applications will require faster response time. Other applications might require something like low packet error rate, or high data reliability. It really depends on what application you need for this network.

And TI offers three modes to help you with any application that you have. The three modes are listed on the board right here-- beacon, non-beacon, and frequency-hopping mode. Our frequency-hopping mode is unique to TI. It has AES security, and is primarily used in a place where there's lots of interference.

So frequency-hopping is important for a robust network. There could be a lot of interference that would cause dropped packets. Frequency-hopping's what you'd want to go with in that situation.

Exactly, because you're switching from channel to channel to maximize data reliability.

Sure. Can you talk about the difference between beacon and non-beacon mode? I'm not quite clear on that.

Sure, definitely. So non-beacon mode-- whenever a sensor needs data, it will pull the coordinator and ask for some data. So an example of an application that would use non-beacon mode might be a temperature sensor that sends back the temperature data once a day, but for the rest of the day, it doesn't need to be turned on that whole time. So non-beacon mode will save you power, and you don't have to worry about your sensors dying.

In contrast, an example of beacon mode would be that you need to open your door every half second, or you need to get a very high response time. Something where the timing is crucial within your application, beacon mode is ideal for that.

OK, so to summarize it, non-beacon is for power critical. Beacon mode would be synchronized data, regular intervals. And then frequency-hopping is to ensure robust signal if there's a lot of interference. Can you also walk me through what data rates our stack supports, and what frequency bands we support?

Sure. We have worldwide frequency bands, and we test all frequency bands and data rates fully. We have several large network setups and different shield rooms in the lab.

And just before we close it out here, I wanted to ask you to just summarize what's special about TI's SimpleLink sub-1 gigahertz 15.4 stack? What sets it apart from what you can get from other competitors?

Our FH mode with AES security is unique to TI. All of our networks have a star network topology. And we've been leaders in the sub-1 G market for the last 15 years, so we commit to deliver you a reliable stack solution for all of your application needs.

Great, yeah. So not only do you get the pre-built PHY and MAC, you get these features on top that you mentioned-- frequency-hopping, the beacon, non-beacon modes. You get the security, the network management, all royalty-free, from TI on the SimpleLink platform.

Yep.

Great. Well, thank you so much, Kelsey, for joining us and illuminating some details about the subgig software here at TI.

Thanks for having me, Nick.

Yeah, it was great. You can come back anytime. And we can get rid of Adrian again, too. But thank you guys for joining as well, joining this episode of Connect. We have a very cool demo that's coming up next week, so make sure to tune in for that.

For any more details on the 15.4 stack that we talked about today, you can go to TI.com/longrange. And for more details about the SimpleLink platform, go to TI.com/SimpleLink. As always, you can tweet at us @SensorToCloud if you have any suggestions for topics, or any questions you'd like answered. Thanks again, Kelsey.

Of course.

Thanks, guys.