ZigBee and the Weightless SIG have introduced new features to their Internet of Things standards.
The ZigBee Alliance is working with the EnOcean Alliance to extend the latter’s energy harvesting technology. It is hoped the partnership could lead to ZigBee 3.0 IoT devices that do not have a battery, as they use their surrounding environment as an energy source.
Tobin Richardson, President and CEO of the ZigBee Alliance, said: “Our goal with ZigBee 3.0 is to provide a unifying IoT standard that simplifies product development while reducing industry fragmentation and unlocking new market growth opportunities. This agreement with the EnOcean Alliance is a first important step down that path.
“A jointly developed specification for the ZigBee 3.0 ecosystem will bring the promise of interoperable self-powered IoT solutions to more markets and applications, meeting growing demand for plug-and-play solutions that can deliver seamless, ultra-low-power battery-less communication.”
The ZigBee 3.0 standard is currently being developed, with the technical specifications, including the work with EnOcean, expected to be completed by Q2 2016. ZigBee devices operate in the 2.4GHz frequency.
Meanwhile, the Weightless SIG has launched the latest iteration of its IoT tech, offering two way wireless links, data rates of up to 100kps and scalable network technology.
The SIG said Weightless-P offered low complexity, long battery lives and reliability for low-powered, wide-area networks.
William Webb, CEO of the Weightless SIG, said: “Weightless-P is a turning point in LPWAN technology – no longer does the IoT community need to compromise between performance and cost when making connectivity decisions…Weightless-P is the definitive open standard for wide area IoT connectivity.”
Elsewhere, the GSMA has welcomed the breakthrough in defining specifications for NB-IoT. The tech uses operators’ existing spectrum holdings to power the likes of smart cities. The first networks are expected to launch in late 2016.