Z-Wave is one of the dominant technologies in the smart home space, with more than 50 million interoperable Z-Wave smart home devices worldwide. The Z-Wave interoperability layer has become the gold standard in smart home communication and is the basis of the successful Z-Wave ecosystem, where all products speak the same language and truly understand each other, allowing service providers and consumers to successfully mix and match any Z-Wave product from any Z-Wave partner.
Sigma Designs has announced that they are releasing the interoperability layer of the Z-Wave standard into the public domain. The Z-Wave Public Spec provides cloud service developers, gateway makers, technology enthusiasts, and others free and easy access to the Z-Wave interoperability layer, for development of smart home IoT applications. They are also making public APIs for two of their software products as well as the full specification of the new, world-class Z-Wave S2 security application framework.
In addition to opening the Z-Wave interoperability layer, Sigma Designs is also releasing:
- The API specification for its Z/IP (Z-Wave over IP) and Z-Ware (Z-Wave middleware) software products. These two APIs are designed for use by gateways, making communication from cloud services to the Z-Wave gateways even more transparent. Sigma Designs is also making public two implementation samples codes for the usage of these two APIs.
- The full specification of the new, world-class Z-Wave S2 security application framework. Z-Wave’s S2 security framework is the industry’s most robust and comprehensive approach to Smart Home security. This allows security experts to view the inner workings of Z-Wave S2 security to further validate or provide critical feedback for improvements.
Over four years ago, the Z-Wave Mac/Phy was adopted by the ITU as the public G.9959 radio standard. This public release of the interoperability layer, our Z-Wave language, marks the next major step towards further democratizing Smart Home standards for the IoT. By publicly distributing the specifications, they are creating a resource for any party that wants to work with the best and biggest smart home ecosystem players. They expect to see even more community involvement and an acceleration of development of new and innovative smart home solutions that adopt Z-Wave, especially in the cloud and gateway space.
Innovators will be able to develop plugins for connections through OCF, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and cloud-based services that can work directly with Z-Wave products and gateways. This will help tie the Smart Home into cloud initiatives and popular cloud services, which will extend the reach of Smart Home products and Z-Wave’s overall leadership position. Free and public access to the specifications for application layer interoperability will also allow the community of smart home IoT developers to explore Z-Wave without having to purchase a development kit or sign an NDA.
The Z-Wave Alliance will remain the steward and regulator of the Z-Wave brand, providing membership and ensuring a rigorous certification process for all products to be commercially offered in the market.
