SAN RAMON, California, June 29 /PRNewswire/ --

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

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.