The ZigBee Alliance, a global ecosystem of companies creating wireless solutions for use in energy management, commercial and consumer applications, announced development of the ZigBee Green Power feature set to establish a global, standard technology for self-powered devices operating through energy harvesting techniques. These devices will communicate seamlessly with existing ZigBee and ZigBee PRO networks and will enable maintenance free, environmentally friendly products that eliminate the need for wires and batteries.
The ZigBee Alliance, a global ecosystem of companies creating wireless solutions for use in energy management, commercial and consumer applications, announced development of the ZigBee Green Power feature set to establish a global, standard technology for self-powered devices operating through energy harvesting techniques. These devices will communicate seamlessly with existing ZigBee and ZigBee PRO networks and will enable maintenance free, environmentally friendly products that eliminate the need for wires and batteries.
ZigBee Green Power enables new capabilities available to the ZigBee and ZigBee PRO networks. When the ZigBee Green Power standard is made available to Alliance members at the end of 2009, only ZigBee will offer an established, competitive marketplace for deploying switches, sensors and controllers using harvested energy in residential, commercial and industrial environments. Its energy harvesting capabilities will give manufacturers greater flexibility when designing innovative ZigBee products and solutions. Because ZigBee Green Power will work seamlessly with ZigBee and ZigBee PRO networks, it will enjoy all of ZigBee's numerous strengths, including:
? Physical Radio – Uses popular IEEE 802.15.4 standard radios available from numerous suppliers
? 2.4 GHz Band – Offers simple global operation vs. country specific radio frequency
? Interference Avoidance – Demonstrates robust performance in noisy radio frequency environments
? Robust Mesh Networking – Makes network set-up and maintenance easy, along with large coverage areas, and renowned reliability
? Security – Takes full advantage of ZigBee's robust security suite
? Certification – Unbiased, independent certification of ZigBee products
? Open Standard – Strong, cost competitive environment vs. single-vendor solutions
"This new enhancement of the ZigBee standard demonstrates how such a dynamic ecosystem can bring innovation to the market,” said Frédéric Vaillant, VP of Technology Innovation for Schneider Electric. “Having energy harvesting devices connected seamlessly to standard ZigBee networks will provide our customers with maintenance-free and even more environment-conscious solutions.”
"ZigBee Green Power provides the world with a true standard for control and sensing products that can utilize harvested energy,” said Bob Heile, Chairman of the ZigBee Alliance. “These maintenance-free devices greatly expand your flexibility when added to comprehensive ZigBee networks already automating or monitoring businesses, homes and industrial environments.”