News

ZigBee Home Automation and ZigBee Remote Control Now Publicly Available (17/3/2010)

The ZigBee® Alliance, a global ecosystem of companies creating wireless solutions for use in energy management, residential, commercial and consumer electronics applications, today announced two of its popular standards, ZigBee Home Automation(TM) and ZigBee Remote Control(TM), are now available for public download.

Since 2005, ZigBee standards have been downloaded more than 100,000 times, demonstrating a strong public interest in utilizing the Alliance's open-source standards and developing applications that provide new ways to control for businesses and consumers. Public availability of the ZigBee profiles helps drive the proliferation of ZigBee worldwide, signifying the true open and global nature of the Alliance's work.

The enhanced ZigBee Home Automation public application profile, announced in August 2009, features expanded security and device support. The standard offers control for home appliances, lighting, environment, energy use, and security. It defines control of HVAC systems, power outlets, motorized devices, doorbells, mechanized window shades, security and other devices. Products using ZigBee Home Automation are ideal for new construction, do-it-yourself and retrofit markets.

Announced in December 2009, the ZigBee Remote Control public application profile frees consumers from pointing remotes at devices, offers flexible control from nearby rooms, enables unique two-way communications between the remote and device, plus delivers improved remote battery life for a variety of consumer electronic (CE) devices like HDTV, home theater equipment, set-top boxes and other audio equipment.

"These two ZigBee standards for the home offer a variety of benefits for CE product manufacturers and consumers," said Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance. "ZigBee gives product manufacturers new ways to innovate and differentiate. As a leader in the home space, our standards provide consumers with more ways to control a smart home than ever before." Today, 28 products from a variety of ZigBee Home Automation categories have been certified by the Alliance and wear the ZigBee Certified product logo. The categories include buttons, deadbolts, dimmers, electrical switches, gateways, key fobs, meter relays, portals, sensors, smart plugs, and development kits.

www.zigbee.org/homeautomation
www.zigbee.org/remotecontrol