Zigbee Addressing

All Zigbee devices have an eight byte MAC Address. However, to reduce transmission time the full 8-byte MAC address isn't used but rather a shorter 2 byte Short Address is used instead.

The module uses the Stack Profile Zigbee 2007 PRO and follows its addressing mode. Earlier versions used a different type of addressing.

Zigbee 2007 PRO uses "Stochastic Addressing" which is a fancy way of saying that each node gets a randomly generated Short Address when it joins another node. This could be a problem though - what if two nodes receive the same Short Address when joining? To prevent this problem, when a node joins it broadcasts a Device Announcement message containing the node's long address and short address. If another device has the same short address then a router on the network will broadcast an "Address Conflict" message, and all devices that have the conflicting short address stored will change their short address. When the conflicted devices change their short address they will broadcast a new Device Announcement message.

End device address conflicts are handled by their parent; with the parent sending the end device a "Rejoin Response" message. When the ED receives this message it changes its short address and the end device broadcasts a "Device Announce" message.

When any node on the network receives a "Device Announce" message the node updates their association and binding tables with the new short address.

Broadcasting
See Broadcast Messages for the special addresses reserved for broadcasting.

Group Addressing
To use group addressing you must first configure a group in the network.