Silicon Labs, a provider of software solutions for the smart connected world and the Z-Wave Alliance, have announced plans to open the Z-Wave Specification as a ratified, multi-source wireless standard available to all silicon and stack vendors for development. With this change, semiconductor and software suppliers will be able to join the Z-Wave ecosystem, contribute to future advancements of the leading smart home standard, and develop and supply sub-GHz Z-Wave radio devices and software stacks. The Z-Wave Alliance will expand to a standards development organization for the Z-Wave Specification and will continue to manage the Z-Wave Certification program, which will include software and hardware.
Expected to be available in the second half of 2020, the opened Z-Wave Specification will include the ITU.G9959 PHY/MAC radio specification, the application layer, the network layer, and the host-device communication protocol. Instead of being a single-source specification, Z-Wave will become a multi-source, wireless smart home standard developed by collective working group members of the Z-Wave Alliance. With more than 100 million interoperable devices deployed, more than 3,200 certified products and over 700 member companies, Z-Wave has the most mature and pervasive smart home ecosystem in the market.
Alliance members and smart home consumers will benefit from the hallmark features of Z-Wave, including interoperability, backward compatibility, the S2 security framework, easy installation with SmartStart, low-power functionality with a 10-year battery life and long-range with sub-GHz mesh. The Z-Wave Alliance will maintain the certification program and expand the offering to provide technology vendors with both hardware and stack certification and product manufacturers with application layer certification.
As a standards organization, the Z-Wave Alliance will help solve the interoperability challenges hindering the adoption of smart home devices. Members will work together on a single sub-GHZ connectivity solution that guarantees the forward-and-backward compatibility, interoperability, security and robustness needed to grow the IoT. The Z-Wave Alliance will collectively advance a fully-realized smart home standard.
Silicon Labs is committed to IoT standardization. By expanding access to Z-Wave as a standard supported by multiple vendors, the smart home ecosystem will benefit both from broader technology support as well as accelerated market adoption.
Silicon Labs has worked to create positive alignment across the industry with the goal of advancing both security and compatibility in smart home devices. Future success for the smart home industry relies on ecosystems getting closer, not farther apart. Enabling an even broader ecosystem of interoperability will bolster both consumer and manufacturer’s confidence, driving overall growth of the industry.
Silicon Labs will continue to invest in Z-Wave technology and contribute to its future growth, collaborating with new suppliers through the expanded Z-Wave Alliance. Development on the opened Z-Wave Specification will be managed by the new working groups in the Alliance in Q3 2020, and details on the silicon and stack platform certification program also will be announced in Q3.
Companies interested in joining the Z-Wave Alliance can also visit the organization's booth at CES 2020 at Stand #41917.
