ZigBee could lose out on the pent-up demand for low power, low data, wireless mesh networks that exists if standardisation is not completed by the end of this year, according to Jennic.
“What is becoming clear is the key driver for the market is standardisation,” said Jim Lindop, CEO of
Jennic. “The ZigBee standard maturing is one clear issue and there’s been a lot of talk about ZigBee and a lot of frustration in the market is about it not delivering.”
Jennic does expect this issue to be sorted by the end of this year but if there is any further delay then users will look elsewhere.
“What people will do is head off on more proprietary routes,” said Lindop. “We see a huge pent up demand for wireless.
ZigBee will either conclude these efforts this year or will lose market share to other wireless technologies.”
Jennic is hedging its bets on this with the launch of a proprietary wireless technology which builds on IEEE802.15.4, aimed at the “tier three” who are “really not active in the market, but are interested…, but the leap to go wireless is simply beyond their skill base”.
“It’s this area where we’ve realised, if we can drive down cost points and make it easy to use, there’s a large untapped market ready to go,” added Lindop. Jennic has launched a $200 starter kit for 802.15.4 and ZigBee aimed at this market sector.
The firm has also announced an audio reference design for 802.15.4 wireless technology using its JN5139 single chip microcontroller.
Lindop said wireless standards such as Bluetooth use profiles for audio provision and there might not be one available for a specific application. “We’re so much easier to use than Bluetooth when profiles are not available for the application,” said Lindop.