Now we are heading into another CEDIA Expo and to date we have nor seen one home installation in Australia using the Control 4 range of products. At the same time questions are now being raised about Zigbee technology and its future in the home with experts saying that commercoal application are more the go for Zigbee technology than the home.
When the Zigbee Alliance made its debut, the organisation heavily promoted its new networking protocol as a home automation tool – one that could enable a futuristic home that took monitoring and control of functions such as security and lighting to a new level of sophistication for the modern homeowner.
The alliance's Zigbee standard, built on top of the IEEE's 802.15.4, was created so that network nodes made by different companies could interoperate. Homeowners could use the technology to designate which lights would be on and off and dimmed for parties, or a night at home alone, or while away on vacation. Security applications could monitor potential breaches. Sprinklers could turn off or on depending upon the moisture level of the soil. And the home owner could easily control all of these functions from a central control.
But a funny thing happened. While Zigbee was being promoted heavily as the infrastructure for the home of the future, commercial and industrial product companies were quietly creating applications of their own. It turns out these applications are more popular among early Zigbee developers and adopters. Indeed, most of the vendors at last week's Zigbee Open House event in the USA were offering solutions for the industrial and commercial space. And the keynote speaker, Dick Braley, of Federal Express, discussed how his company planned to use Zigbee to track its assets, the performance of its equipment, and also track some high value packages.
