New ZigBee Green Power Feature Set Revealed

New energy harvesting, no battery required feature set expands ZigBee networks

SAN RAMON, Calif., June 29 /PRNewswire/ -- The ZigBee(R) Alliance, a global
ecosystem of companies creating wireless solutions for use in energy
management, commercial and consumer applications, today announced development
of the ZigBee Green Power feature set to establish a global, standard
technology for self-powered devices operating through energy harvesting
techniques. These devices will communicate seamlessly with existing ZigBee
and ZigBee PRO networks and will enable maintenance free, environmentally
friendly products that eliminate the need for wires and batteries to power
control devices.

ZigBee Green Power enables new capabilities available to the ZigBee and ZigBee
PRO networks. When the ZigBee Green Power standard is made available to
Alliance members at the end of 2009, only ZigBee will offer an established,
competitive marketplace for deploying switches, sensors and controllers using
harvested energy in residential, commercial and industrial environments. Its
energy harvesting capabilities will give manufacturers greater flexibility
when designing innovative ZigBee products and solutions. Because ZigBee Green
Power will work seamlessly with ZigBee and ZigBee PRO networks, it will enjoy
all of ZigBee's numerous strengths, including:

-- Physical Radio - Uses popular IEEE 802.15.4 standard radios available
from numerous suppliers
-- 2.4 GHz Band - Offers simple global operation vs. country specific
radio
frequency
-- Interference Avoidance - Demonstrated robust performance in noisy
radio
frequency environments
-- Robust Mesh Networking - Makes network set-up and maintenance easy,
along with large coverage areas, and renowned reliability
-- Security - Takes full advantage of ZigBee's robust security suite
-- Certification - Unbiased, independent certification of ZigBee products

-- Open Standard - Strong, cost competitive environment versus
single-vendor solutions

"This new enhancement of the ZigBee standard demonstrates how such a dynamic
ecosystem can bring innovation to the market", says Frederic Vaillant, vice
president, Technology Innovation at Schneider Electric. "Having energy
harvesting devices connected seamlessly to standard ZigBee networks will
provide our customers with maintenance-free and even more
environment-conscious solutions."

"ZigBee Green Power provides the world with a true standard for control and
sensing products that can utilize harvested energy," said Bob Heile, chairman
of the ZigBee Alliance. "These maintenance-free devices greatly expand your
flexibility when added to comprehensive ZigBee networks already automating or
monitoring businesses, homes and industrial environments."

This addition of ZigBee Green Power to the ZigBee family significantly expands
the options available to manufacturers, and expands the already significant
abilities of ZigBee, further strengthening its leadership position as the
global standard for wirelessly building automation devices into a single, easy
to install and use network. These networks offer superb interference immunity
and capabilities to host thousands of devices. With its ultra low-power
requirements, ZigBee devices today run on regular batteries for years,
eliminating the need for wiring to a power source and offering unparalleled
maintenance convenience and installation flexibility.

ZigBee: Control your world
ZigBee is the global wireless language connecting dramatically different
devices to work together and enhance everyday life. The ZigBee Alliance is a
non-profit association of more than 300 member companies driving development
of ZigBee wireless technology. The Alliance promotes world-wide adoption of
ZigBee as the leading wirelessly networked, sensing and control standard for
use in consumer electronic, energy, home, commercial and industrial areas. For
more information, visit: www.ZigBee.org.

SOURCE ZigBee Alliance

Kevin Schader of ZigBee Alliance, +1-925-275-6672, kschader@inventures.com; or
Earlene Tang of GolinHarris, +1-714-662-5115, etang@golinharris.com, for
ZigBee Alliance