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ZigBee Ratifies “3.0” and sets EnOcean Cooperation

December 16, 2015 by Paul Shepard

The ZigBee Alliance announced ratification of ZigBee 3.0, which builds on and unifies ZigBee standards already proven across hundreds of millions of shipped devices. ZigBee 3.0 ratification opens the door to a new era of improved communication and interoperability between products used in applications ranging from connected home, intelligent buildings and smart cities to connected lighting, energy efficiency and other applications.

At the same time, the ZigBee Alliance announced jointly with the EnOcean Alliance 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 record 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 source, making battery-less connected devices a reality.

"Last December we shared our vision for a unifying IoT standard that would make it easier to develop and market interoperable products and solutions, unlock growth opportunities, and fuel innovation to enable surprising new capabilities in the home, workplace and cities," said Tobin Richardson, President and CEO of the ZigBee Alliance. "After a year of member testing and development, we now announce a significant step in fulfilling this vision with the ratification of ZigBee 3.0. This along with finalization of our Common Applications Library is a major milestone that we believe will help propel the IoT past infancy to mainstream market opportunities that can only be realized with future-proofed products that are easy to build and deploy, and that deliver compelling benefits across many different applications."

Helping to lead the standards groups to collaborate with the ZigBee Alliance on fulfilling this vision for the IoT is the EnOcean Alliance. The two groups will work together to combine the benefits of EnOcean Equipment Profiles (EEPs) already widely adopted in the sub-one GHz frequency with the newly ratified ZigBee 3.0 solution in the worldwide 2.4 GHz frequency band.

ZigBee 3.0 is the first single unified, open and complete wireless IoT product development solution of its kind. It extends all the way from the physical to application layer, and includes certification and branding for improved interoperability across a growing range of market segments. Based on proven ZigBee PRO Mesh networking and with unique Green Power support for advanced energy-harvesting devices, ZigBee 3.0 is fully compatible with existing ZigBee Home Automation and ZigBee Light Link standards. ZigBee 3.0 unifies all previous application-specific ZigBee device descriptions, behaviors and profiles into a common applications layer that supports all IoT product development needs for smart homes, buildings and neighborhood area networks. The availability of ZigBee 3.0-certified devices will increase choice and flexibility for developers and users, and deliver the confidence that products and services will all work together.

"The ZigBee Alliance has delivered on its promise of a unifying IoT standard," said Bruno Vulcano, Vice Chairman of the Board, ZigBee Alliance, and VDI & RF Engineering Manager, Legrand. "ZigBee 3.0 addresses the need for true interoperability between IoT devices and solutions by standardizing all layers of the network."

ZigBee 3.0 ratification is the first major step in a number of planned 2016 initiatives that will be focused on further simplifying IoT product development and deployment, reducing industry confusion through the availability of a consolidated set of open application device definitions, and helping members bring the benefits and capabilities of connected IoT devices to a significantly broader range of applications and markets.

"We are very excited that 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 a first important 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 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 business 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."

"The ZigBee Alliance's board of directors and I are pleased to be entering into this relationship with the EnOcean Alliance," said John E. Osborne II, Chairman of the ZigBee Alliance board. "We expect this technology cooperation to deliver significant new benefits and opportunities for our members and their customers as we move closer to true interoperability for the IoT."

This technical cooperation agreement will build on the EnOcean Alliance's already strong position with more than 1,500 interoperable products available for home and commercial building automation, and expand it bringing energy harvesting wireless communication to many more applications in the IoT and consumer arenas. It will also take advantage of the newly ratified ZigBee 3.0 standard, which enables battery-less devices to securely join networks across a variety of energy harvesting applications. As a result, the industry will have new opportunities for creating intelligently connected buildings and developing other solutions across a variety of applications. The collaboration is also designed to provide a foundation to seamlessly bring data to the IoT frameworks of other industry initiatives, in order to facilitate interoperable communication from the sensor to the cloud.

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 alliances plan to complete definition of this technical specification and share details of associated collaborative marketing and business activities in the second quarter of 2016. ZigBee 3.0 is the first single unified, open and complete wireless IoT product development solution of its kind. It extends all the way from the physical layer to the application network layer, and includes certification and branding for improved interoperability across a growing range of market segments.