Z-wave will work with ZigBee

[Squintz]

Some may not have read this yet so i am posting it here for your enjoyment!

http://www.zen-sys.com/index.php?page=135
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Zensys's Mike Dodge told me that the company "couldn't wait" to come to market, and that it will make both ZigBee products and bridges that allow the current products to work with ZigBee when it is standardized. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[George]

So Z-Wave will be obsoleted by ZigBee and we'll have to use bridge's to support the old Z-Wave stuff that is not the standard?

Is that the way I'm reading it?

[bdickhaus]

That is the way I read it. I certainly hope this is not the case. This could be a major blunder on the part of ZenSys and could make this whole idea fail.

Bill

[rocco]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by George:
So Z-Wave will be obsoleted by ZigBee <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Or ZigBee will be a non-starter due to the success of Z-Wave.

I think Zensys is hedging their bets in case ZigBee is successful. But I'm guessing they would be much happier is ZigBee was stillborn because the known universe adapted Z-Wave instead.

[Rick Tinker]

There are a lot of technical hurdles for ZigBee to go through yet, and who knows how far ahead Zensys will be by then. For example, ZigBee has a contention at the 2.4GHz range, which as you know is a very popular area of the spectrum...

As far as what I could tell thus far, ZigBee is also being designed like any other Ethernet-like network in that it uses repeaters (hubs) and routers, but not a setup like Z-Wave where every device is a router and signals are not needlessly broadcast (repeated) all over the place.

The last point is that Zigbee has a bunch of BIG name players that are a part of it, and if there is anything I learned from my time dealing with the early predecessor to UPnP and then a small amount of dealing with UPnP at HP is that nothing will get done very fast at all.

I personally was ready to jump ship with just Zensys doing this on their own, but since they are a part of Zigbee and are going to work with them, I think we will eventually get the best of both worlds - the early market leader and the "standard" too. (But don't forget that we have all used X-10 for almost 30 years, and that was NEVER a standard recognized by any standards body or alliance!)

[Stevech]

my $0.02 having had briefings in person from some of the Zigbee (IEEE 802.15.4) players...

In the consumer market, people don't care about standards and cross-product interoperability very much. Thus, mesh networks based on proprietary wireless will get and keep a limited market, much as BSR/X10 did. There'll probably be 2 or 3 such product lines.

In the industrial controls and enterprise security business, the standards are of course much more important. But even here, GE and Honeywell and the rest will truly build products around the standard only reluctantly. Or will build a product line which has so many compelling features outside the standard that their products are essentially proprietary. Cisco has reduced this to a fine art.

[anogee]

When I first heard about Z-Wave, and having long known about Zigbee, I was surprised that ZenSys deviated Z-Wave so much from what was already known about ZigBee. They didn't attempt to design devices that could be upgraded to "ZigBee" at a future date.

The more I thought about it, and this is JUST a guess, is that ZenSys designed Z-Wave as to not interfere with any future ZigBee standard for home automation. Then, someday if the ZigBee standard was created, ZenSys, assuming it was still in business, could design a ZigBee/Z-Wave bridge to allow both systems to operate together. Actually this is a pretty good idea because they could design Z-Wave cheap (non-upgradable) and still operate with ZigBee when and should products ever appear. This makes sense, because the more I learn about Z-Wave, the more I see that it doesn't in the least try to be ZigBee.

[rocco]

Anogee, though I agree with most of what you said, I think there is a simpler reason why Z-Wave is not like ZigBee. The design of Z-Wave was pretty complete before the ZigBee committee started meeting.

Now it's up to ZenSys to grab market share before ZigBee comes online. I think they have a good head start, and a good marketing strategy; Sell the chips cheap to anyone who wishes to develop Z-Wave devices. I think their posturing with ZigBee is insurance, in case ZigBee takes off, and leaves Z-Wave in the dust.

[Rick Tinker]

There is a fundemental difference in architecture too. Z-Wave is touted as a low-bandwidth control network that goes alongside your broadband wireless networks. I am not so sure Zigbee is anything like that - they appear to work as part of the existing 802.x networks, and they may carry broad payloads as well.

Also, Z-Wave is a routed network with each node being a router, but Zigbee is based upon your typical Ethernet node from what I have gathered, and that means that it will have to operate in an ad-hoc network arrangement or you will need routers and repeaters in your house to support Zigbee throughout it.

And lastly, the issue of spectrum and the current overlap that Zigbee has with other standards is another reason Z-Wave did not want to WAIT for them to figure out how to deal with that - they did their own thing at an area of the spectrum that does not interfere with other stuff and thus allowed them to get to market.

Z-Wave was under development for some 2-3 years prior to its big release last year as far as real products being available.

[anogee]

I think Z-Wave certainly has a chance of succeeding, and maybe the Z-Wave folks tackled some problems that ZigBee hasn't even begun to look at yet. Remember also, that ZigBee wiil be used for much more than home automation. One of the biggest markets for Zigbee is replacing the IR in your remote control. Considering that home automation isn't that giant of a market, the ZigBee folks may decide that its not worth it to enter that market, especially if Z-Wave is doing well and has gathered considerable marketshare.

[Ericryherd]

I've been looking into both Z-Wave and Zigbee. From my reading so far, Z-Wave was designed several years ago and is very good at what it does. My only complaint with it is that it is only 9600 baud vs. 250k baud of Zigbee.

Z-Wave has the Mesh networking built in and deployed now which is way ahead of Zigbee. The Mesh network is critical for reliability. Zigbee/IEEE 802.15.4 are looking into Mesh networking but like everything designed by committee, it will take some time before it rolls out. And even longer before anyone can bring it to market.

Z-Wave clearly has a 2-3 year lead on Zigbee. But is that enough for the long run? Depends on the success of Zigbee.

Zensys is doing ALL the right things to make Z-Wave a defacto standard - especially getting Intel interested. If they can get it onto the motherboard it will be a huge win.
USB didn't take off until 90% of the PCs already had it.

But there are lots of competing standards in the wireless arena - Ultra-Wideband may just completely blow away both Zigbee and Zwave.

where's my crystal ball...

[Rupp]

Well I have only a few words to say on the subject. I HAVE a Z-Wave switch in my wall connected to a Z-Wave interface to HS. That's it.

[Rick Tinker]

9600bps is PLENTY fast for device control.

You can achieve greater distances at a lower power consumption at lower speeds, and that was a big design goal of ZWave.