ZigBee Specification Is Ratified

The ZigBee Alliance has ratified the first ZigBee™ specification making the development and deployment of extremely power efficient, cost effective, low data rate monitoring, control and sensing networks a reality. This on-time delivery of the specification is the culmination of two years of worldwide development and interoperability testing by the more than 100 member companies within the ZigBee Alliance.

ZigBee is aimed at applications with low data rates and low power consumption. ZigBee's current focus is to define a general-purpose, inexpensive self-organizing mesh network that can be shared by industrial controls, medical devices, smoke and intruder alarms, building-automation and home automation. The technology is designed to be simpler and cheaper than other WPANs such as Bluetooth. The most capable ZigBee node type is said to require only about 10% of the software of a typical Bluetooth or Wireless Internet node, while the simplest nodes are about 2%.

For those members that have already announced ZigBee-ready technology, the ratification of the specification enables them to quickly enhance their products and begin testing to obtain ZigBeecompliant certification. All Alliance members have complete and exclusive access to the final specification and will continue to participate in ongoing interoperability testing to verify that their products are ZigBee-compliant.

"The announcement of the ZigBee specification is a major milestone in wireless networking," said Andrew Wale, vice president of Business Development, Advance Transformer Company, A Division of Philips Electronics North America Corporation. "ZigBee is poised to become the leading wireless technology for a myriad of uses ranging from building automation to industrial and residential applications. As a member of the Alliance, we have been following closely the development and ratification of the specification and look forward to bringing innovative new products to consumers using the ZigBee technology."

Now that the ZigBee specification has been ratified, the Alliance will continue to validate the specification through expanded interoperability and scalability tests and future enhancements. The Alliance will actively promote the use of ZigBee-enabled technology in real-world applications to foster new, creative applications for the market, as well as to facilitate the broad market adoption of the ZigBee standard around the world.

“The adoption of the ZigBee specification gives member companies the opportunity to capitalize on this innovative technology for monitoring, sensing and control applications in residential and commercial environments,” said Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance. “We are excited to reach such a significant milestone in the development of the global ZigBee specification. Given the number of ZigBee-ready products announced in 2004, we anticipate seeing ZigBee-compliant consumer products as soon as early-2005.”