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ZigBee Wireless Standard Ratified

Posted by michael on from the do-you-zig? dept.

ductormalef writes "Today, the ZigBee Alliance announced the release (pdf) of version 1.0. ZigBee is a standard for low data-rate (250kbps max) wireless personal area networks (WPANs). It utilizes the IEEE 802.15.4 hardware and MAC layers which utilize frequency bands at 898MHz, 902-928MHz, and 2.4GHz. ZigBee supports mesh networking and claims to be 'wireless control that simply works.' They claim to be a solution to everything from wireless home automation to industrial control."

2 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. $5 chips by March, says Mr Zigbee - Bob Heile by judgecorp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Zigbee chips will be available for $5 in the first quarter of 2005, according to Bob Heile of the Zigbee Alliance. I had a long interview with him about Zigbee's prospects. He clearly enjoys his work.

    Zigbee will be big in phones, and he reckons it's on target for 5 million units by the end of 2005.

    Peter Judge. Techworld

  2. price sensitive by LordMyren · · Score: 3, Interesting

    zigbee is aimed at very price sensitive markets, but has one currently fatal flaw:
    you have to purchase software stacks.

    most any hardware a developer buys is worthless without another huge investment in a software stack to run the standard.

    some people are just using a zigbee's basic transmit/recieve functionality withotu many of the integral spec features for this reason. its like buying an 802.11 chipset that doesnt work with anything else.

    the zigbee industry desperately needs to get together and release free software for a number of different micro-architectures.

    myren