Mesh networking is a powerful way to route data. Range is extended by allowing data to hop node to node and reliability is increased by "self healing," the ability to create alternate paths when one node fails or a connection is lost.

One popular mesh networking protocol is ZigBee, which is specifically designed for low-data rate, low-power applications. Digi International offers several products based on ZigBee. Additionally, Digi has developed an alternate mesh protocol named DigiMesh. Both ZigBee and DigiMesh offer unique advantages important to different applications, and this paper discusses those advantages.