Swiss power sensing firm LEM has become the most recent company to adopt Zigbee for in-building wireless network products.

In this case, it is for a series of clamp-on power meters, dubbed Wi-LEM, which allow the energy use in areas of large buildings to be monitored - known as energy sub-metering.

Why Zigbee? “It is designed for volume and low-cost and it is robust in industrial and building environments,” said Tarek Boumegoura from LEM UK. “It can be configured in various topologies so you are sure to be able to establish a network, whatever the shape of the building.”

Zigbee is taking off in building automation where laying wires into existing buildings is expensive.

Philips has also opted for a Zigbee-compatible system with its Equos lighting control system and recently Toronto-based Riga Development released WiSuite, a hotel environmental management system based on Zigbee silicon from MIT spin-out Ember.

LEM makes its own sensor node, but buys in intermediate ‘mesh node’ network relay points and the ‘mesh gate’ which links to the building’s computer from Massachusetts-based Millennial Net.

“As Zigbee becomes more popular we would expect our sensors to operate with existing [Zigbee] networks,” said Brian Carter, LEM’s UK sales manager.