Device types and clusters

For the purpose of interoperability (described in Section 2.9), the ZigBee Alliance employs the concepts of a device type and a cluster, which define the functionality of a network node. Clusters and device types are introduced below (but more detailed information can be found in Section 3.4).

Note: The ZigBee ‘application profile’ (which collects together the device types for a market sector) is not so

prevalent in ZigBee 3.0. However, application profiles are still supported for backward compatibility.

Clusters

A cluster is a software entity that encompasses a particular piece of functionality for a network node. A cluster is defined by a set of attributes (parameters) that relate to the functionality and a set of commands (that can typically be used to request operations on the cluster attributes). As an example, a thermostat uses the Temperature Measurement cluster that includes attributes such as the current temperature measurement, the maximum temperature that can be measured, and the minimum temperature that can be measured. However, the only operations that needs to be performed on these attributes would be reads and writes.

The ZigBee Alliance defines a collection of clusters in the ZigBee Cluster Library (ZCL). These clusters cover the functionalities that are most likely to be used. The NXP implementations of these clusters are provided in the ZigBee 3.0 Software Developer’s Kit (SDK) and are described in the ZigBee Cluster Library User Guide (JNUG3132).

Parent topic:Device types and clusters

Device types

The complete functionality of a network node is determined by its device type. This defines a collection of clusters (some mandatory and some optional) that make up the supported features of the device. For example, the Thermostat device uses the Basic and Temperature Measurement clusters, and can also use one or more optional clusters. A device is an instance of a device type.

A network node can support more than one device type. The application for a device type runs on a software entity called an endpoint and each node can have up to 240 endpoints.

All ZigBee 3.0 nodes must implement the ZigBee Base Device (which does not occupy an endpoint), which handles fundamental operations such as commissioning.

The ZigBee device types and ZigBee Base Device are detailed in the ZigBee Devices User Guide (JNUG3131).

Parent topic:Device types and clusters

Parent topic:ZigBee overview