Smart Spaces

Unlimited communication in the Internet of Things (IoT)

Author: Graham Martin, Chairman, EnOcean Alliance
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The ZigBee Alliance and the EnOcean Alliance jointly develop an open, global specification for energy harvesting wireless communication technology to meet the growing demand for interoperable, self-powered IoT sensor solutions. For this purpose, the two organizations combine the benefits of EnOcean energy harvesting wireless solutions with ZigBee 3.0 for worldwide applications.

The cooperation connects the two alliances’ advantages, synergies and track record of standards advancements to create an open, global specification that will extend energy harvesting wireless communication to a broader range of self-powered IoT sensor solutions. These solutions use the surrounding environment as their energy source, making batteryless connected devices a reality.

New possibilities for smart connectivity

The technical cooperation agreement will build on the EnOcean Alliance’s already strong position with more than 1,500 interoperable products available for home and commercial building automation, and expand it, bringing energy harvesting wireless communication to many more applications in the IoT and consumer arenas. It will also take advantage of the newly ratified ZigBee 3.0 standard, which enables batteryless devices to securely join networks across a variety of energy harvesting applications. As a result, the industry will have new opportunities for creating intelligently connected buildings and developing other solutions across a variety of applications.

The collaboration is also designed to provide a foundation to seamlessly bring data to the IoT frameworks of other industry initiatives, in order to facilitate interoperable communication from the sensor to the cloud.

Technical Task Force for details

A Technical Task force will be built of ZigBee Alliance and EnOcean Alliance representatives to define the technical specifications required to combine standardized EnOcean Equipment Profiles (EEPs) with the ZigBee 3.0 solution, which operates in the worldwide IEEE 802.15.4 2.4 GHz standard. The alliances plan to complete definition of this technical specification and share details of associated collaborative marketing and business activities in the second quarter of 2016.

www.zigbee.org

www.enocean-alliance.org