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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."
Up to 3 members now?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
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.
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
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".
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?
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.
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.
...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.