The Zigbee Alliance has announced “All Hubs Initiativeâ€, a major ongoing initiative to make smart home and IoT products easier to develop, deploy, and sell across ecosystems.
With a goal of improving interoperability between IoT devices and major consumer and commercial platforms, the new initiative is driven by a Zigbee Alliance workgroup comprised of companies including Amazon, Comcast, Exegin, Kwikset, Landis+Gyr, LEEDARSON, Legrand, MMB Networks, NXP, OSRAM, Schneider Electric, Silicon Labs, Somfy and many others.
The “All Hubs Initiative” has lead to a set of features at the application and network layers of Zigbee that will be incorporated into the upcoming 3.1 version of Zigbee technology.
Although Zigbee Alliance members are able to participate in this workgroup and access and contribute to these evolving specifications, the Alliance has publicly announced the initiative as several smart home systems will add these features to their platform certification requirements ahead of the upcoming 3.1 version of the technology.
“Consumers and businesses want connected devices that offer value and convenience, work great, and work together seamlessly,” said Chris DeCenzo, chair of the All Hubs Initiative workgroup, board director of the Zigbee Alliance, and principal engineer at Amazon. “Through the All Hubs Initiative, leading IoT companies in the Zigbee Alliance are working together to define interoperability standards to help device makers innovate and expand selection while continuing to deliver consistent, reliable experiences for customers.”