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

ZigBee aims to win the home automation-standards race, and the initial surge is about six weeks away, according to Eric Smith, CTO of Control4.

Control4 is a home-control manufacturer that claims roughly 1 million installed ZigBee nodes, including light dimmers, keypads, thermostats, controllers and universal remotes.

ZigBee is a low-rate RF (2.4 GHz) mesh-networking protocol developed for industrial and residential automation. It is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard that defines low-power radios.

So when I talk about ZigBee not being a "standard," the folks at Control4 cringe.

Most recently, in an article on ElectronicHouse.com, I compared ZigBee with its main competitor Z-Wave:

Z-Wave has the benefit of being a real “standard,” meaning Z-Wave products from one manufacturer are interoperable with those from other vendors (with a few exceptions).

ZigBee is trying to get there, but currently you cannot mix-and-match ZigBee products from multiple vendors.

For that reason, I normally conclude that Z-Wave (900 MHz), which also uses mesh-networking technology, is winning the residential battle for two-way RF communications. Currently, several hundred Z-Wave products – dimmers, thermostats, motorized shades, garage door openers and more -- are available from myriad manufacturers and they all interoperate (with a few exceptions).

Not so for members of the ZigBee Alliance, most of which currently employ their own version of the so-called standard.

"If what you define as 'standard' is being interoperable, then Z-Wave is leading," says Control4's Smith. "If you define it as open to everyone, an IEEE spec, where anyone can build on it, then ZigBee is the standard."


The one-time Control4 Partner Pavilion could become the ZigBee Pro Pavilion

He notes that Sigma Designs, the company that bought Z-Wave developer Zensys last year, is the only manufacturer of Z-Wave chipsets, compared to about a dozen for ZigBee.

In our business, however, it's all about interoperability. Who cares about ZigBee otherwise? It's just a nice RF technology implemented in proprietary control systems.

ZigBee Interop Based on Control4 Platform

In October 2007, the ZigBee Alliance ratified ZigBee Pro, which makes mandatory certain elements of the once-optional ZigBee stack. Under ZigBee Pro, the alliance began to create profiles for specific applications including home automation.

The ZigBee Pro Home Automation profiles are already defined for these device classes: remote controls, lighting, contact closure, HVAC and intruder alarm systems. Door locks and window coverings should be wrapped up in a couple of weeks.

It looks like Control4 will be the first to implement some of the Pro specs for automation.

That's no surprise, really, because Control4's ZigBee implementation -- heretofore proprietary -- has pretty much become the de facto ZigBee standard for home automation. CardAccess, manufacturer of various sensors and access control products, has used Control4's version of ZigBee for at least a year, meaning of course that its devices only work with Control4. Soon, however, they will be compatible with any device that is ZigBee Pro-compatible.

For the most part, Control4's version of the ZigBee HA profile has been adopted.

"We proposed our solutions," says Smith. "That became ZigBee Pro."

Smith concedes that Control4 originally was opposed to having its peripherals – dimmers, thermostats, keypads, etc. – be controllable by any compatible third-party device.

The company, after all, doesn't want to be in the dimmer business. It wants to sell controllers and, ultimately, Control4 operating systems.

Control4's 1 million-or-so ZigBee nodes in the field can almost instantly become Pro compatible with a firmware update, available through Control4 dealers.

Moving forward, Control4's ZigBee products will have the Pro feature set right out of the box.

UPDATE: 5/26: HAI Adopts ZigBee Pro for Smart Energy, Home Automation

Who Will Follow Control4's Lead?

What good is a standard if only one company is implementing it – as has been the case with Control4 for quite some time?

Smith is certain that others will follow after Control4 rolls out ZigBee Pro on a large scale in about six weeks.

"I think you'll see more ZigBee Pro by the end of this year because they'll have us as an anchor tenant," Smith says.

CardAccess, for one, is already committed to ZigBee Pro. The company today makes ZigBee-compatible (well, Control4-compatible) mini remotes, motion sensors, pressure sensors and I/O devices.

Smith says that LG Electronics (TVs), Black & Decker (door locks) and Mechoshade (blinds) also intend to implement ZigBee Pro. All three companies already have products that interoperate with Control4.

The core home-control companies, though, are another story. The original takers – Crestron, AMX, Centralite, Colorado vNet and others -- simply found ZigBee to be an excellent RF solution with enough critical mass to keep costs down.

Interoperability was not a concern and, for many of the vendors, they'd rather not have third-party products potentially interfering with their ecosystem.

That's no problem, Smith says, as long as they're using the core 802.15.4 radio spec.

"It's still OK because you know they [all those devices] aren't walking all over each other," he explains. "It's like using Ethernet without the IP protocol."

Smith explains there is still leeway for manufacturers to create their own private extensions to ZigBee Pro to maintain a competitive advantage.

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."

Also, ZigBee is listed as a standard in the National Institue of Standards and Technology's (NIST) SmartGrid standards roadmap.

"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.

Panasonic, Philips, Samsung and Sony have agreed to implement ZigBee's RF4CE, the 802.15.4-based protocol meant to replace pesky IR remote controls.

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.