6LoWPAN (acronym of "IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks")[1] was a working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
[1] The 6LoWPAN group defined encapsulation, header compression, neighbor discovery and other mechanisms that allow IPv6 to operate over IEEE 802.15.4 based networks.
[citation needed] Thread is a standard from a group of more than fifty companies for a protocol running over 6LoWPAN to enable home automation.
IPv6 nodes are assigned 128 bit IP addresses in a hierarchical manner, through an arbitrary length network prefix.
On the other hand, wired nodes in the IP domain are not constrained in this way; they can be larger and make use of mains power supplies.
Algorithms and protocols implemented at the higher layers such as TCP kernel of the TCP/IP are optimized to handle typical network problems such as congestion.
Identifying the functionality of this layer and defining newer packet formats, if needed, is an enticing research area.
The management of addresses for devices that communicate across the two dissimilar domains of IPv6 and IEEE 802.15.4 is cumbersome, if not exhaustingly complex.