Possible to support ZigBee and proprietary RF concurrently?

[whyeye]

Hi, we are developing a home automation product that needs to support ZigBee. However, at the same time I would like the devices to be able to work with a simple non-mesh RF protocol in case the customer does not have an existing ZigBee coordinator. Is this possible using Nordic SoCs?

Thanks.

[awneil]

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Low-power-short-range-wireless/Multiprotocol

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Low-power-short-range-wireless/Multiprotocol-2_0

[whyeye]

Thanks. I did look at various documentation but it was a bit unclear as to whether one can do dynamic multiprotocol with ZIgBee and proprietary RF. It seems most of the examples are done with Bluetooth as one of the protocols. The compatibility table seems to suggest that it is possible but I haven't been able to find any other information or examples.

[Hung Bui]

Hi Whyeye, 

As suggested by Andrew, you can consider running Zigbee and Bluetooth Low Energy concurrently. We have an example that work out of the box with this setup. You can have a look here: https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/topic/sdk_tz_v4.1.0/zigbee_multi_examples.html?cp=7_3_3_8_4

More detail about the dynamic multiprotocol can be found here: https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/topic/sdk_tz_v4.1.0/ble_154_multiprotocol.html?cp=7_3_4_0

Do you have a requirement on a specific proprietary you need to use or BLE would be a good option ? 

[whyeye]

Hi Hung,

Thanks for your reply. We would like to avoid using both ZigBee and Bluetooth mainly due to the high licensing costs. Is it possible to do dynamic multiprotocol with RF4CE? That might be another option for us.

[Hung Bui]

Could you clarify that you want to do Zigbee and RF4CE at the same time or only switching between the protocols ? 
You mentioned that the proprietary protocol is to be used if the customer doesn't have Zigbee coordinator. Would that meant RF4CE won't be used at the same time as Zigbee ?

If you only need to switch between the protocol I don't see a big issue here as both of them based on top of 802.15.4.