ZigBee, EnOcean Announce Collaboration
Organizations to combine benefits of EnOcean and ZigBee solutions for worldwide applications
DAVIS, Ca. — The ZigBee Alliance, a nonprofit association of organizations creating open, global standards that define the Internet of Things (IoT) for use in consumer, commercial, and industrial applications, announced, with the EnOcean Alliance, a consortium for battery-less, wireless smart buildings and smart homes, that the two organizations will cooperate on combining the benefits of EnOcean energy-harvesting wireless solutions with ZigBee 3.0 for worldwide applications.
The cooperation connects the two alliances’ advantages, synergies, and track records of standards advancements to create an open, global specification that will extend energy-harvesting wireless communication to a broader range of self-powered IoT sensor solutions. These solutions use the surrounding environment as their energy sources, making battery-less, connected devices a reality.
“We’re very excited the EnOcean Alliance is bringing its energy-harvesting expertise and widely deployed device profiles into the ZigBee 3.0 ecosystem,” said Tobin Richardson, president and CEO of the ZigBee Alliance. “Our goal with ZigBee 3.0 is to provide a unifying IoT standard that simplifies product development while reducing industry fragmentation and unlocking new market growth opportunities. This agreement with the EnOcean Alliance is an important first step down that path. A jointly developed specification for the ZigBee 3.0 ecosystem will bring the promise of interoperable, self-powered IoT solutions to more markets and applications, meeting the growing demand for plug-and-play solutions that can deliver seamless, ultra-low-power, battery-less communication.”
“This is a major next step on the way to an interoperable IoT from two industry-leading organizations combining their expertise and influence to help make this vision a reality,” said Graham Martin, chairman of the EnOcean Alliance. “The globally available 2.4-GHz frequency is the key to the consumer market. We look forward to working with the ZigBee Alliance, one of the most experienced organizations in this field, to define the technical specifications for worldwide energy-harvesting wireless solutions based on this worldwide standard. This will give our members access to new regions and additional fields of applications to grow their businesses for self-powered innovations. It perfectly adds to the EnOcean Alliance’s established market of smart buildings in the sub-1-GHz frequency, which will continue to be a major focus for us, bringing field-proven and interoperable energy-harvesting solutions to new areas of use. This is a significant win for the complete wireless community.”
A Technical Task Force will be built of ZigBee Alliance and EnOcean Alliance representatives to define the technical specifications required to combine standardized EnOcean Equipment Profiles (EEPs) with the ZigBee 3.0 solution, which operates in the worldwide IEEE 802.15.4 2.4-GHz standard. The alliance’s plan is to complete definition of this technical specification and share details of associated collaborative marketing and business activities in the second quarter of 2016.
Publication date: 1/18/2016
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