Along with the rapid development of the Internet of Thing (IoT), smart home applications and the market prospects are really optimistic. Among the numerous kinds of IoT wireless technology, Z-Wave technology, with better power saving and further transmission distance will make smart home applications much easier to achieve. This text will introduce the characteristics of Z-Wave technology and the Z-Wave 700 solution launched by Silicon Labs for you.
Longer battery operation time and connection distance accelerates the popularization of smart home applications
From the view of whether the device quantity in the market or the quantity of families with devices installed and smart homes has maintained sustainable growth in the past decade, according to the latest statistical data from Futuresource Consulting, the global retail revenue of smart home devices in 2019 will reach 6 billion (USD), which is estimated to be tripled in 2021.
Concentrating on control and management, smart homes enable users and house-owners to execute commands to turn on the lights, adjust the temperature, and see who is home. These functions are based on various wireless protocols for connecting smart home devices, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Thread, Zigbee, and Z-Wave. Each of these communication protocols provides a set of functions and protocols selected by device manufacturers which can influence the operating modes of devices in the smart home environment and the ability of smart operation.
These kinds of wireless technology have their own advantages and disadvantages. However, the most important limit lies in that most of the wireless devices are battery powered. Due to the fairly short communication distance, expanders need to be added with lower processing capacity to reduce battery consumption. These limitations may prevent smart homes from being really smart. In addition, indoor and outdoor remote devices may be difficult to connect and battery powered devices (such as wireless sensors) may need frequent battery replacement.
If a coin-cell battery powered wireless sensor can operate for 10 years, it can be installed in any location at home to provide sensor data for a machine learning engine and program, and achieve smart application by combining the relevant data, including weather, appliances and time, etc. This machine learning engine can comprehend the surrounding environment and then bring self-adapting automation into the family. These improvements help the life of house-owners become more convenient, reduce energy costs, and increase family safety.
Z-Wave technology is an open and internationally recognized ITU standard (G.9959). It is a leading wireless smart home technology in the current market and has over 2400 kinds of certified interoperability products worldwide. With the Z-Wave alliance as the representative, this standard has been supported by over 700 companies worldwide, which is the key driving technique for smart life solutions like home safety and security, energy, hotels, office and light business applications, etc.
In order to improve the compatibility among smart devices, Z-Wave has selected establishing an ecosystem and emphasizes that cross-brand interoperability as a primary goal. Using the 900MHz frequency band which is less crowded, Z-Wave adopts a set of open descriptors and rules, which allows various kinds of applications from any manufacturer to speak a common language. Depending on its decision with compulsive requirements on interoperability and security, Z-Wave has been able to develop the largest smart home product ecosystem so far.
In April 2018, Silicon Labs acquired Z-Wave technology and launched the Z-Wave 700 series brand-new smart home platform, which improved energy efficiency, strengthened the performance, and lengthened the radio frequency coverage distance based on the industry-leading S2 security and interoperability of Z-Wave. Relying on the Wireless Gecko platform, Z-Wave 700 helps developers establish smaller and smarter new smart home products with lower cost and faster time to market.
The Z-Wave 700 series integrates the powerful platform based on ARM® processors and high-capacity on-chip memory, which can provide more smart capacity in the edge zone and achieve security protection in a second. An energy-saving type of Z-Wave 700 platform can be coin-cell battery powered with a service life of 10 years, which greatly expands the application range of wireless sensors. Enhanced radio-frequency performance enables Z-Wave 700 devices to get rid of traditional distance restrictions and seamlessly cover the courtyard edge zone and each corner of home life.
The Z-Wave 700 series is based on Z-Wave core characteristics and can achieve interoperability with thousands of devices, which guarantees the best security via the built-in Security 2 (S2). Z-Wave 700 also includes SmartStart, which provides a kind of convenient mode for automatic composition and configuration of Z-Wave networks, as well as supporting convenient and successful installation of devices.
In order to increase the development speed of smart devices, Silicon Labs provides multiple development tools for achieving easier and faster smart home product design. Developers can benefit from low-cost development kits, energy consumption analysis tools, and existing gateway software with an authentication identifying code in order to minimize the development time from the prototype design to the final product. Developers can also use Simplicity Studio development kits from Silicon Labs to achieve one-key access to all required software tools and simplify the product design based on Z-Wave 700.
The emerging Z-Wave IoT technology is promoting the integration of wireless connection and edge intelligence. Wireless sensors supporting ten years or longer time of battery life can be installed in any suitable location of smart home. The improvement of the Z-Wave platform will achieve ubiquitous and economic sensing in the whole smart home, which makes it possible and practicable for each family to deploy tens or even hundreds of Z-Wave devices. The future market prospect will be quite optimistic and potential.
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