IEEE 802.15.4-2024
IEEE Standard for Low-Rate Wireless Networks. Approved by the IEEE SA board on 2024-09-26 and published 2024-12-12, it replaces 802.15.4-2020 and is the active edition. It defines the physical layer (PHY) and the medium access control (MAC) sublayer for low-data-rate radio links between fixed, portable and moving devices that run on no battery or a very small one. It also defines modes for precision ranging, and its PHYs cover operation in many regions. Read from IEEE's own listing for the standard, 2026-10-04.
It is free to read
IEEE's listing says: "The PDF of this standard is available at no cost compliments of the IEEE GET program." The link points to the IEEE 802 series in IEEE Xplore, where downloading needs a free IEEE account. So a reader who wants to read the standard does not have to buy it.
That corrects this spoke. On 2026-09-03 6lowpan and the synthesis said "IEEE sells 802.15.4". The research pass took that as a reason to read the IETF layer above it instead. The IETF RFCs were the right read for how IPv6 crosses the link. The paywall was not real.
What the corpus holds of it, and what it does not
This page holds the scope and the access route, not the normative text. Channel access, the frame format, the 127-octet PHY packet limit and link-layer security are still described here only at second hand, through 6lowpan (which quotes a 102-octet MAC payload from RFC 4944) and iot-protocols. Reading the 2024 PDF is the open step. It needs an IEEE account, so it waits on the curator.