Latest ZigBee Specification and Golden Units Now Available

SAN RAMON, California, January 30 /PRNewswire/ --

- Public Availability of ZigBee Technology Foreshadows New Products
Available From ZigBee Members This Year

The ZigBee Alliance, a global ecosystem of companies creating wireless
solutions for use in energy management, commercial and consumer applications, 
today announced the public availability of the latest version of the ZigBee 
Specification and the certification of the newest ZigBee Golden Unit 
platforms which implement the ZigBee PRO Feature Set.

The newest Golden Units are available from Ember, Texas Instruments and
Airbee Wireless. These member companies successfully implemented the new
ZigBee PRO Feature Set and passed independent testing conducted by NTS Corp.
and TUV Rheinland. With the completion of the three Golden Unit platforms
supporting the latest ZigBee Specification, other platform suppliers may now
gain ZigBee Pro Feature Set certification. One of ZigBee's key strengths is
offering the market multiple interoperable platforms. This provides product
manufacturers with a solid supply chain and the greatest choice in technology
needed to deliver a wide range of energy efficiency, home and commercial
building automation and industrial products.

The latest ZigBee Specification includes the ZigBee Feature Set and the
new ZigBee PRO Feature Set, offering product companies greater flexibility in
using ZigBee. It was released exclusively to Alliance members last October.
Capabilities for both Feature Sets and a side-by-side comparison are
available at http://zigbee.org/imwp/download.asp?ContentID=11900 and the
specification download can be found at
http://zigbee.org/en/spec_download/zigbee_downloads.asp.

"Schneider Electric and its subsidiaries are embracing ZigBee, including
the newest features such as the ZigBee PRO Feature Set, and view them as key
to the wide-spread adoption and implementation of ZigBee," said Jean-Pierre
Desbenoit, electronic and software research director at Schneider Electric.
"With this move, the ZigBee Alliance is continuing to deliver the key
technology and tools the market needs to develop and deploy products for a
wide variety of products and services."

To ensure quality, the Alliance requires Golden Units. They are multiple
independent implementations proving a Specification revision and
demonstrating interoperability for future ZigBee products.

"With certification of these new ZigBee Compliant Platforms and the
public availability of the latest ZigBee Specification, we continue to see a
significant increase in developers who are using ZigBee in their product
development efforts," said Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance. "The
ZigBee Alliance congratulates the three Golden Unit companies on delivering
the latest building block the market requested."

The Alliance is making strong progress in its deployment of interoperable
ZigBee product solutions via ZigBee Public Application Profiles that enable
end-to-end, multi-vendor interoperability. In January, the Alliance announced
the completion of the ZigBee Smart Energy profile. In November 2007, it made
the ZigBee Home Automation profile and ZigBee Cluster Library available for
public download at http://zigbee.org/en/spec_download/zigbee_downloads.asp.
Future public application profiles in development include commercial building
automation and telecommunications.

The Alliance is more than 250 members strong, boasting a presence in 
28 countries spanning six continents. Product manufacturers represent 
50 percent of the Alliance's global membership. ZigBee is the only 
standards-based technology designed to address the unique needs of low-cost, 
low-power, wireless sensor networks for energy management and efficiency, 
home and commercial building automation, plus embedded network applications 
in the commercial, industrial and consumer markets. Companies wanting to 
participate in developing the ZigBee marketplace may join the Alliance by 
visiting http://www.zigbee.org/en/join/.

ZigBee: Wireless Control That Simply Works

The ZigBee Alliance is an association of companies working together to
enable reliable, cost effective, low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring
and control products based on an open global standard. The ZigBee Alliance
membership comprises technology providers and manufacturers worldwide.
Membership is open to all. Additional information can be found at
http://www.zigbee.org.

Web site: http://zigbee.org/imwp/download.asp?ContentID=11900
              http://www.zigbee.org