A technology with the name of ZigBee is hard to forget. Although it has been around for a while now, will the buzz still be heard in two or three years or will it be another technology like HomeRF that will fall by the wayside?

Not surprisingly, the proponents of ZigBee are very enthusiastic about its future, but the sceptics say that other better established technologies could be used equally well. While only the future will reveal whether it succeeds, all the signs seem to indicate that it will make its presence felt in a big way before long.

Its development path over the last few years can be summarised with 2004 being the year in which much of the development of ZigBee was undertaken. 2005 is the year of technical verification and 2006 is seen as the year for the first large scale deployments.

The ZigBee Alliance, the organisation that is developing and promoting the ZigBee standard, now has more than 150 members ranging from the large multinational companies such as Freescale, Honeywell, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Philips and Samsung, to many very much smaller enterprises. Over 30 per cent of the membership are OEMs who have interests ranging from the cellular telecoms industry to others in the heating and lighting arenas while others are involved with the automotive industry.

Bob Heile

Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance, comments on its growth: "We believe 2005 is going to be an incredible year of continued momentum and development for ZigBee, as evidenced by our growing global OEM membership."

Further milestones have been passed recently. In June this year the Alliance announced public availability of the ZigBee specification. Companies interested in ZigBee are now able to review the technical details of the specification in its entirety and gain a greater understanding of the value of ZigBee to their wireless networking developments. This will enable many more companies to review whether the standard will be of benefit to them.

The value of certification has also been recognised. This ensures that products based on ZigBee compliant platforms from different vendors are able to operate together in a single network without interoperability problems.

Since the ratification of the ZigBee specification in December 2004, the Alliance has been finalising a formal compliance testing programme to include both software and hardware.

ZigBee-compliant platforms include the IEEE 802.15.4 radio and the ZigBee stack up to the application layer and will be available as either chips or modules for use in end products. The Alliance expects to begin certification testing of end user products based on these platforms and ZigBee application profiles in the coming months.

"Since before the ZigBee specification was ratified, the Alliance has been developing a testing strategy so we could assure the market that all ZigBee products using a ZigBee platform and application would be interoperable," says Heile.

With the foundations set, a wide variety of products are now becoming available. There are many ZigBee specific chips hitting the market along with software and a number of developer modules. Final products are also starting to appear.

Recently Chipcon, a low cost low power RF chipset specialist, announced the shipment of over one million ZigBee-ready IEEE 802.15.4 RF chips. The chips, which are part of Chipcon’s ZigBee-compliant wireless device networking system, use Z-Stack, a software stack from sister company Figure 8 Wireless.

Passing the one million chips mark represents a major milestone for ZigBee, demonstrating the market for this technology.

"The fact that we have already reached one million units is a significant milestone, not only for Chipcon but for the entire ZigBee 802.15.4 market," says Geir Fore, president and CEO of Chipcon.

Beyond the development of the silicon and software elements, applications are now starting to be implemented.

One large example is of a ZigBee-based application for Ruan Transportation. This is to be used to track and manage its perishables shipping system. Naturally, accurate location of all containers is essential to ensure that the perishables can be located and shipped to the required destination on time.

Many other applications are under development. One typical scenario is for lighting systems for large office blocks where central control and monitoring of the system would enable considerable savings to be made. With the large number of switches, lights and sensors required for such a system, the network configurations and the large number of possible nodes make ZigBee an ideal option.

Undoubtedly many more ZigBee applications will be seen in the coming months. Its low power capability means that sensors can be battery powered and remain operational for many months between battery changes. Additionally the flexibility of the system enables vast numbers of nodes to be included in a network, and for it to configure itself to pass data from one node to the next over the best route, changing the route if interference or other conditions change.

With these and many other benefits, it seems likely that this standard will be taken up in a large way for applications in monitoring and control.

www.zigbee.org