KNX is an open standard for commercial and home building automation. KNX devices can manage lighting, blinds and shutters, HVAC, security systems, energy management, audio and video, white goods, displays, and remote controls, making it an important standard for smart home applications.
Different connection modes can meet additional application requirements
Evolved from three early standards, including European Home Systems (EHS) protocol, BatiBUS and European Installation Bus (EIB or Instabus), KNX can use twisted-pair cable (in a tree, line or star topology), power line, RF or IP link, on which devices form distributed applications and can interact closely.
These different KNX connections can be selected according to the application requirements. For example, twisted-pair cable is a separate control cable suitable for new installation and large-scale renovation and has the highest level of transmission reliability. IP belongs to Ethernet/Wi-Fi connection, suitable for communicating with mobile devices in large installations requiring a fast backbone network. RF (radio frequency) belongs to a wireless line suitable for application environments where cables cannot be installed. Power lines can be used for existing networks (neutral line and phase line must be available), suitable for occasions where additional control cables cannot be installed.
Offering diversified complete KNX solutions
ABB is a global technology company that meets various applications' diverse needs by connecting software with its portfolio of electrification, robotics, automation, and motion products. ABB saw the development and application requirements of KNX technology and also produced various KNX-related products.
ABB has introduced the i-bus® KNX family of products for KNX applications, including system devices such as media couplers (RF-TP), signal repeaters, and USB radio frequency interfaces, as well as a wide variety of sensors (batteries, power supply voltages, or energy collection) such as buttons, binary inputs, remote controls, temperature, brightness control, and various actuators for switching, dimming and shading, which are quite diverse.
By the product type, ABB i-bus® KNX family of products include power supply products, system infrastructure and Interfacing, connection and wiring devices, multifunctional room automation devices, input devices, output devices, shading controllers, lighting control products, presence detection products, heating/ventilation and air conditioning control products, automation, logic and time controllers, visualization, display and signaling display products, energy management, safety and monitoring, security products, buttons and sensors, etc. You can learn more about our products at https://new.abb.com/low-voltage/products/building-automation/product-range/abb-i-bus-knx.
Highly integrated ultra-slim wall switch and twisted-pair KNX solution
onsemi also launched a number of products for KNX applications, such as System in Package (SiP) for KNX wall switches - NCN5140S. The NCN5140S can build a complete KNX switch system in a very small form factor, using a minimum number of external components and allowing the design of ultra-slim switch applications.
The NCN5140S integrates the market-leading onsemi KNX transceiver and ARM Cortex-M0+microcontroller and most of the required passive components into one package. The remaining components are highly integrated and have a minimum height, allowing the design of ultra-slim KNX switch applications.
The NCN5140S combines a certified physical layer with the KNX stack and pre-certified software for up to 8 configurable rocker switch buttons or touch switch buttons. The KNX SIP can develop KNX switch application in a very short time. Pre-certified application software includes driving and dimming functions, and can support up to 8 RGB LEDs to illuminate buttons or touchpads. Using this device, KNX certification can be obtained only by registering derivative designs with KNX Association, which can reduce research and development work, speed up product time to market and have the advantage of low BOM cost.
The NCN5140S can be applied to capacitive touch switches and rocker switches, both of which can support up to 8 buttons. RGB LED can illuminate buttons, suitable for building automation and smart home fields. The end products include smart lighting switches, shutters and blinds control, ventilation control and other related products.
onsemi also introduced a full-featured KNX transceiver for twisted-pair networks - NCN5130, a receiver-transmitter chip suitable for KNX twisted-pair networks (KNX TP1-256). The NCN5130 is embedded with PHY and MAC layers, and handles the transmission and reception of data on the bus. It is a KNX-certified twisted-pair transceiver that supports 9600 baud communication speed. The NCN5130 can generate a stable voltage from unregulated bus voltage to meet its power supply requirements and external power devices. It has two efficient DC-DC converters and a linear regulator. The DC-DC1 is fixed at 3.3 V, and the DC-DC2 can be adjusted between 1.2V and 21 V. It has a 20V linear regulator with the current bus consumption of 40 mA.
The NCN5130 provides a variety of monitors (KNX bus voltage, current, temperature, etc.) via analog pins to ensure safe coupling and decoupling from the bus. It also supports control and monitoring of power regulators, buffering of sent data frames (supporting extended frames), and optional UART/SPI interface and baud rate to the host controller. The NCN5130's integrated clocking system uses industry-standard low-cost 16 MHz quartz to generate an 8/16 MHz clock for an external MCU operating in the extended ambient temperature range from -40℃ to +105℃.
The NCN5130 can be used in any TP1-256 application. Most KNX applications can be powered directly from the NCN5130 without an expensive external power supply. With best in class overall system efficiency, it can support various high-end KNX applications with high power demand, such as home automation and smart buildings. The end products include smart lighting and switches, HVAC, thermostats, alarms and smoke detectors, shutters and blinds, alarms, occupancy detection products, etc.
KNX-certified twisted-pair and RF solution
ST also introduced a cost-optimized and energy-efficient solution for KNX-RF applications. The portfolio has dual RF connections (Bluetooth LE and KNX-RF) and only two chip configurations, including the S2-LP Sub-1GHz transceiver and BlueNRG-2 Bluetooth LE SoC, both certified by KNX-RF Multi, capable of simultaneously handling multiple RF channels (to reduce interference issues with other devices below 1GHz) and reducing power consumption for battery-powered applications that are critical to wireless systems.
The S2-LP is a high performance ultra-low power RF transceiver for RF wireless applications in the sub-1 GHz band. It is designed to operate in the license-free ISM and SRD frequency bands of 433, 512, 868, and 920 MHz, but can also be programmed to operate in the 413-479 MHz, 452-527 MHz, 826-958 MH, and 904-1055 MHz bands. The S2-LP supports different modulation schemes, including 2(G)FSK, 4(G)FSK, OOK, and ASK, with air data rates programmable from 0.1 to 500 kbps.
BlueNRG-2 is a very low power programmable Bluetooth® LE 5.2 wireless SoC that extends the functionality of the award-winning BlueNRG network processor to support running user application code using embedded Cortex M0. The BlueNRG-2 consists of 256 kB programmed flash memory, 24 kB static RAM memory (two 12 kB banks) and SPI, UART, and I²C standard communication interface peripherals. It also has a multifunction timer, watchdog, RTC, and DMA controller. The BlueNRG-2 also has an ADC that can be used to connect analog sensors and read the measured values of integrated battery voltage sensors, and a digital filter can be used to process PDM streams.
In addition, ST also offers KNX twisted-pair solution, i.e. Tapko KNX stack running on STM32 MCU with STKNX twisted-pair transceiver, which is developed by ST in close cooperation with TAPKO/Shufan. STKNX chipset has a small package and few external components, which can support very compact KNX nodes, and has passed KNX certification and can support KNX TP1-256 applications.
ST's KNX twisted-pair solution supports bus current up to 30mA and can operate in the temperature range from -40℃ to +85℃. A simple "bit" interface to the microcontroller and crystal-free features two integrated voltage regulators for external applications, an optional 3.3V/5V-20mA linear voltage regulator, and an efficient DC/DC switching converter that is adjustable from 1V to 12V-150mA.
Conclusion
KNX standard plays a very important role in smart home applications, providing diversified wired and wireless network configuration modes to meet different application requirements. The KNX solutions described in this article, including ABB's various KNX complete solutions, onsemi's ultra-slim wall switch SiP and twisted-pair KNX transceiver, and ST's twisted-pair and RF solution, will be worth your in-depth understanding and use when developing KNX-related products.
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