NEC backs ZigBee wireless networking

By Robert Jaques on Nov 7, 2006 11:38AM

Major boost for emerging peer-to-peer technology.

The emerging ZigBee local peer-to-peer mesh networking technology has received a major boost with the announcement of backing by NEC Electronics, Skyley Networks and Uniband Electronic.

All three companies have unveiled ZigBee development kits, including software and hardware designed to enable OEMs and system developers to develop low power, wireless peer-to-peer mesh networks based on the technology.

The kits will be certified for compliance with the Enhanced ZigBee Standard, to be unveiled by the ZigBee Alliance early next year.

ZigBee is a wireless network technology that enables long lifetime with low power consumption using dry batteries.

The technology is optimised for a wide range of building automation, industrial automation, medical and residential control and monitoring applications.

Proposed applications for ZigBee include industrial and residential building management systems, lighting controls, automated meters, sensors and security systems.

The software development kit, co-developed by NEC Electronics and Skyley Networks, features a GUI which allows network development without the need for C programming, and includes a network sniffer, network viewer, node setting tool and node monitor tool.

The hardware platform consists of several evaluation boards based on All Flash microcontrollers by NEC Electronics, combined with Uniband Electronic's UZ2400 transceiver device which integrates a wireless RF transceiver operating at 2.4GHz, physical layer baseband and media access control layer architecture.