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Has Home Automation Standard Finally Arrived? ZigBee Pro with Control4 as ‘Anchor’
ZigBee Pro’s Home Automation profile, based on Control4 protocols, is an open standard with commitments from LG, Black & Decker, Mechoshade and others
ZigBee Pro only defines the basic specs for any particular category. For example, the lighting control specs only mandate ON, OFF, SCENES and GROUP.
Smith explains that Control4 still has its own features apart from the spec, like controlling the LED colors on its keypads.
In any case, the ZigBee Pro camp doesn't aim to convert every ZigBee implementer.
"Companies that want to participate in the broad market will care," says Smith.
That was the case with Z-Wave, for example, when giants Wayne Dalton and Leviton came aboard.
ZigBee and the Energy Market
It has often been said that whichever standard wins the "smart meters" will win the home.
That may or may not be the case, but the "big three" – ZigBee, Z-Wave and HomePlug Command and Control (powerline) -- are all claiming victory with the utilities.
Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance says that ZigBee has been selected and is currently being installed in over 36 million electric meters for residential use.
"This number is growing daily and will strongly drive the deployment of ZigBee products in the home," he says, "since the need for an open standard solution is paramount, not to mention support for adequate security."
Control4 first demonstrated ZigBee-compatible smart meters at CES 2008, along with software for monitoring and managing energy use
"That's just another driver for broadscale deployment," Heile says.
Smith says that "quite a few smart meters" already employ the Smart Energy profile within ZigBee Pro. But it isn't so simple to translate that into smart automation devices.
"There are a lot of security issues," he says.
Control4 is creating a device that "talks the Smart Energy profile, and then bridges it to home automation," Smith says.
He acknowledges that HomePlug CC is a contender for the smart-meter business but says HomePlug and ZigBee are working together.
The problem with HomePlug CC, Smith says, is that thermostats don't have power to them.
The problem with ZigBee is or can be that the meter may not be close enough to a home's thermostat. RF proximity is particularly problematic in multidwelling units like apartments, where properties are much farther away from the meters.
What is clear is that when Control4 hits the ZigBee Pro switch, other manufacturers overnight will be able to talk to dozens of different dimmers, switches, thermostats, keypads, sensors and other devices – millions of which are already installed in homes, apartments and hotels.
And if they can't do it overnight, they can always license the ZigBee Pro software stack from Control4.
And Another Thing: A/V Control through RF4CE
ZigBee has another thing going for it, and it's a biggie: control of A/V gear. None of the would-be automation standards has done that before.
Will ZigBee succeed where CEBus, LonWorks, UPnP, SCP, HAPI, WSD and countless others have failed?
Sony already has commercialized an LCD TV and RF remote control based on the new standard.
"ZigBee is now on the fast track to enter millions more homes around the world because no other technology will be able to deliver what ZigBee can do in this space," says Heile.
To be a real standard, though, ZigBee needs to extend beyond RF. Indeed, says Heile, "We have an active program to offer PLC [powerline carrier]. In fact, even though we think wireless will be the most popular solution we are moving to achieve protocol [physical layer] independence."
He adds, "And yes we believe we are the standard for home automation especially with the addition of ZigBee RF4CE on top of all this."
Black & Decker, which supports both Z-Wave and ZigBee, will implement ZigBee Pro in some of its electronic door locks under the brands Kwikset, Weiser Lock and Baldwin.
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14 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
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.
I’ve had a successful career using standards to promote better results at lower costs. Manufacturers do nothing to help this. BACNET was an industry standard in the Building Management Systems industry. Every manufacturer hopped on board but all of them focused all their effort in the tiny section of the standard that was extensible—meaning they all had their own incompatible protocols in that tiny packet section.
The good news is that you could do the basics of getting readings and setting values between systems so it’s not a complete failure.
And just because a few large players adopt a standard does not mean CE pros will have an easier time. You’ll be able to install their products just fine together until they start selling them at WM and erode your margins to that of the PC realm.
Consumers will be forced to live with the limitations and true Systems Integrators will have a harder time finding devices with open standards that they can integrate into truly custom solutions.
Vote with your wallet, avoid proprietary products and manufacturers that don’t support open interfaces or plan your exit strategy wisely.
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.