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ZigBee Alliance Triples in Size
maxstreampr writes "The ZigBee Alliance just put out a press release talking about how they tripled in size in the past year. I know, I can see the posts already. "What up to 3 members now." There are actually 124 members and they have some huge players in Phillips, Freescale, Samsung, and MaxStream. Not too shabby." See this story from December for more on ZigBee; in short, it's a low-data-rate wireless standard "to enable wirelessly networked monitoring and control products."
Ouch!
Up to 3 members now?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Whee. My fridge will be able to talk to my toaster about absolutely nothing in 2045 when stuff for this comes out.
Not meaning to troll, but exactly why is ANOTHER consortium of companies that are 'working towards' something news? It seems there are several hundred of these groups, and I dont see anything in the article that seperates this one or makes its goals unique. "working together to enable wirelessly networked monitoring and control products based on an open global standard" is not exactly the most descriptive goal in the world.
Those who study history are doomed to watch others repeat it.
I mean, sure there are products (they probably showed them at the recent CES). But has anyone actually USED anything that has ZigBee in it? Is there some product that's "easy to find" (not horrifically obscure) that's available? Has anyone used ZigBee it's self or developed for it so they could give us impressions of it?
I mean it's interesting and all, but so was DataPlay (and we all know how many things with DataPlay we have in our houses).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Wonder where they got the name from, Big Z ... Zig Bee .. still doen't make much sense though.
I'm not sayin' that the name is all that matters, but ZigBee's? That sounds more like a fast food restaurant then an entity that should be making standards.
"A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes." -Mahatma Gandhi
Is it just another IT company wanting to show off ?... Where is this going after all ?
Then we can forgo all this standarizition of various non standard standards in standarized version of their non-standardized selves in a standard way that is standard to all disciplines that need some form of standardization standards.
Who's up for a bucket of Onion Wings? You'll wish you had less fun!
This is nothing but a smoke show until we start seeing some serious silicon being manufactured. Once they start pumping out single chip solutions for under $5.00USD in quantity, THEN it is something to be taken seriously. Until then, its nothing more than a potential pump 'n dump stock scam.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
What does this do that Bluetooth doesn't?
Right on! This means Intellitoast will become a reality!
Please add GenToo project to the list. ZigBee support in tomorrow's build.
Guess they launched all ZigBee...
(/lame)
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
My Star Trek Frisbee Golf club has some players from a few of the largest corporations in America. You might have heard of them: McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell...
Generally if something triples in size you would expect the new number of people to be a multiple of 3.
...your product page has actual products, and doesn't say "Coming Soon".
...Bluetooth didn't leave a big enough crater when it crashed and burned.
ZigBee, n, pronounced: Bluetooth.
I could try to explain the difference, but someone else already did in the article from last month, so I'll just link to that instead:
2 777&cid=11086941
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
this is somehow news? innovation? relevance? fish in the ocean? beuller? beuller?
All you unbelievers - this protocol would be a great solution to a 'problem'. Wireless connectivity for devices, without needing a wireless access point.
Check out the use of quotation marks in the summary -- yet another great example of the high standards the "editors" hold themselves to here.
Zigbee can have ~65,000 devices on one network. The power consumption of Zigbee is very low, about 20mA @ 0dB. This doesn't sound like much output power, but we've measured 160' between two chipcon zigbee development boards in an office environment (through walls and everything)
One of Zigbee's strength is its low data rate - makes for a very robust low power network. Ideal for light switches and thermostats, etc.
I, for one, welcome the ZigBee overlord.
X10 wireline protocol has its shortcoming when one uses in a dual-phase household (two sets of 112-120VAC in alternate AC phases). It mandates installing a capacitor to act as a bridge.
Otherwise, one would have to have dual controller segment throughout the house.
I've got a number of zigbee products in my lab for sensor net research. You can get them...
? sid=101
http://www.xbow.com/Products/productsdetails.aspx
http://www.moteiv.com/
Another wireless attempt. I want to set up a Home Automation system, yet things don't seem to have moved on since 20 years ago. You have a few wireless options, which I'm not interested both for security and as I have a lot of appliances that generate a lot of RF. X10 is slow and unreliable. The Clipsal CBUS is a nice idea but a patented monopoly and stupidly expensive. There are some nice USB capture devices such as labjack, minilab, etc but Linux support is poor. There are embedded computers but those with Ethernet are too expensive. There are a few RS485 options though. I was hoping some XaP devices would appear, PIC based, but Xap has turned into some crap WinXP desktop app. DMX isn't appropriate really. I'm going to have to come up with some homebrew solution, currently thinking of using Micromint PicStic which appears better for home control than the Gumstix, but it's going to reduce the resale price of my flat if I don't use a supported off-the-shelf solution :-(.
The state of HA today is a sad mess. I really am disappointed.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
For great justice!
Move all zig! err, zigbee.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
in short, it's a low-data-rate wireless standard "to enable wirelessly networked monitoring and control products."
This is one of the few stories on Slashdot where some random obscure thing is actually explained.
Zigbee should be way cheaper to implement than BT (say a buck vs five bucks), but that does not mean you'll see PDAs get Zigbee by default. Likely though your TV will get Zigbee and apart from being able to control its power intelligently it will allow you to control Zigbee devices via your TV/remote.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
tinyOS! tinyOS! tinyOS! tinyOS! tinyOS! tinyOS! tinyOS! tinyOS! ...
ZigBee is basically a product of IEEE 802.15.4 (or the other way around actually). You can read more about 802.15.4 here: http://www.ieee802.org/15/pub/TG4.html
...That the newly power-mad ZigBee Alliance wishes to expand even more by combining with the Consortium of Tral.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
124 users! Dear Sir, is sounding to me like this is one Zig that is not taking off! Where is the great justice in that?
select * from base where originalOwner = 'you' and currentOwner != 'us'.
0 rows returned.
Sorry, just knee-jerking from one of my pet peeves here. The name of the company is very likely PHILIPS. Please go ahead and count the number of Ls in there. Yes, there can be only one! Now we continue with our scheduled comments.
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
My numbers are a bit off - the 300 are at $18US, in quantity they will be around $10US. Not quite at the $5US range, but close.