ZigBee is the only standards-based wireless technology designed to address the unique needs of device-to-device communication in just about any market. Since 2002, the ZigBee Alliance has been creating open, global standards for the Internet of Things. On December 16, 2015, the Alliance Ratifies Interoperability the new Standard for IoT Devices
ZigBee is the only open, global wireless standard to provide the foundation for the Internet of Things by enabling simple and smart objects to work together, improving comfort and efficiency in everyday life.
The ZigBee Alliance is an open, non-profit association of approximately 450 members driving development of innovative, reliable and easy-to-use ZigBee standards. The Alliance promotes worldwide adoption of ZigBee as the leading wirelessly networked, sensing and control standard for use in consumer, commercial and industrial areas.
ZigBee is designed for the special requirements of device-to-device communication, the foundation of the Internet of Things.
- ZigBee is reliable and robust and uses multi-hop mesh networking to eliminate single points of failure and expand the reach of networks.
- ZigBee is low-power allowing battery-operated devices such as door and widow sensors to operate for seven years. With the Green Power feature, you don’t need any batteries!
- ZigBee is secure and uses a variety of security mechanisms such as AES-128 encryption, device and network keys and frame counters.
- ZigBee is global and is built on 2.4 GHz which is available for unlicensed use anywhere around the world. This means a product developer can sell the same product anywhere on the planet.
- ZigBee is interoperable and standardizes network and application layers. Everything from joining a network to device operations like on and off are defined so devices from different vendors can work together seamlessly.
Officials with the ZigBee Alliance a year ago announced that the group was unifying the various application-specific versions of its wireless specification into a single standard in hopes of accelerating interoperability between the billions of devices that make up the Internet of things.
The alliance in February 2016 will begin certifying products for ZigBee 3.0 after announcing Dec. 16 that the unified standard had just been ratified by the 425-member Alliance group.
The move is important not only for the millions of ZigBee-enabled products that already are on the market but for the larger push in the industry for greater communication and interoperability among the broad array of disparate devices, systems and sensors in the Internet of things (IoT). The new wireless development solution brings the various ZigBee versions into a common applications layer that supports all IoT development efforts.
"The key is the common applications layer," Tobin Richardson, president and CEO of the 13-year-old ZigBee Alliance, told eWEEK, adding that it brings together all the development work that has been done through the group since 2002.
The Internet of things is expected to grow rapidly over the next several years. Projections for the numbers of connected devices by the end of the decade vary, but the trajectory is a sharp increase. For example, Cisco Systems is estimating that the number of connected devices worldwide will grow from 25 billion last year to more than 50 billion by 2020. IDC analysts predict that spending on the IoT will reach $1.3 trillion by 2019.
More information about the Zigbee Development on the website click here
For the news item of eWeek click here