Has Home Automation Standard Finally Arrived? ZigBee Pro with Control4 as ‘Anchor’

Control4 is in financial distress, the marketing is good, but they have failed to do any measurable business for the over 100 Million invested. I know many people in the company and all are nervous. They just settled a lawsuit with lutron and have two more major lawsuits pending. Zigbee remains largely unproven and seems that the CISCO IPSO strategy is to move zigbee to wifi to leverage the network.

ZigBee is gaining momentum with stable manufacturers like HAI.  According to their catalog, their new Zigbee thermostats, lamp modules, etc. will be released this summer.  The coolest part is that their systems will support the home automation profile and the utility profile.

The idea that Zigbee is largely unproven is a ridiculous statement. I have had hands on daily experience with Zigbee systems for the past 5 years they work well. There are hundreds of thousands of nodes working everyday in the real world. What more proof do you want?

Zigbee and WIFI are different standards designed to do different things. I am not sure I would want a couple hundred nodes (ex. lighting) on my data network or heavy downloads to effect my control network.

I only have one word…..

PHAST

Smarthomes Chattanooga:

No one said that ZigBee was unproven as a technology but as a standard. There is has been very little interoperability between manufacturers up to this point becuase the profiles to do so did not exist.

The fact that Control 4 is on shakey footing doesn’t help Julie’s case that they are somehow in the driver seat here.

Control4 is NOT in financial distress, and is in fact growing quite nicely in these tough times.  Is selling 1,000,000 devices failing “to do any measurable business”?

Ex C4 posted the unproven thing as well as the financial issues (of which I have not heard anything reputable).

Interoperability issues come with the territory during the early stages of any new spec. There are generally a few flavors until one standard becomes dominant.

While Control4 has been the driver to date, with other major manufacturers coming onboard (Panasonic, Philips, Samsung and Sony with RF4CE and many others), it seems to me that Zigbee may of hit critical mass and that we might finally have a open common control protocol.

Ember doesn’t even get the interoperablilty issues that exist.

While ZigBee might have the utility side of things, we belive Z Wave will win the HAN side of things.

Typical media, tearing up the shreads.

What’s next? Julie reporting that Ice Cube Trays are the next big innovation? Come on!

The interoperability thing is still new to zigbee and will take time to iron out. z-Wave isn’t going anywhere. It’s the only one with critical (interoperable) mass for Resi. HAI will continue to make both (see new zigbee story). As with today, there will be bridges for everything.

Ice cube trays? Genius!

Ember chips work with TI and others now that the Smart Energy Profile is implimented. 

Z-Wave is not one of the standards that were adopted for HAN utility services by the US gov’t, so I think that it will be largely phased out.  Why would you want a thermostat that talks only to the utility company or only to your home automation system, but not to both.  Only ZigBee offers connectivity to both networks.

Zigbee probably makes sense as this years newest industry standard wannabe, however, it is still all about the user interface and related experience.

Common language or not - industry standards don’t grow markets, consumers do and we aren’t rushing out to BB to buy our HA products now that the industry appears to have finally rallied around a decent means to interoperate.

So the ‘standard’ will be created after the reported 1 million nodes out there are flashed?  Who exactly is going to do that?  Will Crestron, Centralite and others follow suite with a simple ‘flash update?’ If I am a consumer I would expect every Zigbee device in existance to have a basic set of interoperability if I see the Zigbee logo.  Clearly that is NOT the case so why introduce the term ‘standard.’  Perhaps market Zigbee Pro as a standard but then don’t throw around statements about the million nodes in existance.  This is classic marketing spin wanting it both ways.

At least with Z-wave every node node in existance can be placed on a network, play a role in the mesh, and provide standard control commands.  To me, that is the definition of a standard.  When Zigbee Pro can talk about multiple lighting systems, window treatment motors, thermostats, stand alone touch screens, remote controls, garage door openers, IP enabled home controlers, and door locks all seamlessly working together as a stystem an article about a ‘standard war’ makes sense.  Right now there is a ‘technology’ battle and only one standard: Z-Wave.

Standard?,
  You have valid points, but the article stated control4 by itself has 1 million nodes.  All of the nodes at a site are updated automatically went a single C4 controller is updated. When sites have 100+ nodes a-pop it can add up in a hurry.  There can potentially be near 1 mil Pro nodes in a short amount of time.  But in the end, all Zigbee vendors do need to update to Pro for it to be a true standard.

The point of Zigbee Pro is just what you ask for: lighting systems, door locks, remotes… all working together.  A few vendors already do all of those very things on zigbee(non-pro).

While Z-Wave may have better interoperability among various vendors (all using the same chip) it is not perfect.  Even Z-Wave themselves don’t claim every node. - http://www.z-wave.com/modules/interoperable/

Like it or not, for now, Zigbee has more heavy-weights behind it. And the changes to Zigbee Pro will only encourage more.