Hi!

I am curious if it is possible to develop one's own Zigbee module, as I am currently working on a Zigbee project: https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/EFEKTA_eON213z_2ad692dc.html

Honestly, Zigbee is a bit pricey for mass production, so I was wondering if I could create the module ourselves to cut costs.

I want to use a 2.4GHz Zigbee RF module.

Thank you.

 

Does something like look like this may be a good starting point?
https://csa-iot.org/csa_product/nrf52833-zigbee-3-0/

 

The module you're using looks to be around $20 from China, similar modules from a reputable supplier ie Mouser/DigiKey are $25 - 30. The issue you'll have with going for a bare chip is you won't have the FCC accreditation and the cost of type-approval testing for ECM etc won't be cheap. Also that's a 100mW transmitter; most of the lower cost modules around the $8 - 10 mark are 1 - 10mW. Swapping that module out might not be so easy.

 

Further thoughts: The nrf52833 chip linked above is 6mW output and is $7 in low volumes (Mouser). That represents a delivered cost on PCB with socket, RF coils etc around $12-15. Are you using another microcontroller (MCU) to dive the ZigBee device & the display etc? If so, the way to get more cost effective is to use the ZigBee chip as your MCU as it has a 64MHz Arm Cortex-M4 processor which should be well capable of this task.