ZigBee Issues CertificatesZigBee Issues Certificates

ZigBee Alliance issues first ZigBee-compliant platform certificates

April 11, 2005

3 Min Read

SAN RAMON, Calif. -- The ZigBee Alliance, an association of companies working together to enable wirelessly networked monitoring and control products based on an open global standard, today announced four ZigBee-compliant platforms from Chipcon, CompXs, Ember and Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. Using testing services provided by the Alliance’s official test houses, National Technical Systems, Inc. and TUV Rheinland, and leveraging analysis tools from Daintree Networks, the Alliance conducted extensive testing on these platforms to ensure complete interoperability. This announcement culminates close to a year of effort by these companies, devoted to development of the compliance testing process and to the testing of these platforms.

Since the ratification of the ZigBee specification in December 2004, the Alliance has been finalizing a formal compliance testing program for the ZigBee platform, which is a software and hardware design to enable OEMs to develop a wide range of ZigBee based products. ZigBee-compliant platforms include the IEEE 802.15.4 radio and the ZigBee stack up to the application layer and will be available as either chips or modules for use in end products. The Alliance’s intensive testing approach is designed to ensure that products based on ZigBee-compliant platforms from different vendors will be able to form into a single, cohesive ZigBee network capable of passing data for all applications on the network. This ensures multi-vender interoperability of products based on the ZigBee platform and using an Alliance approved application. The Alliance expects to begin certification testing of end user products based on these platforms and ZigBee application profiles in the coming months.

“Since before the ZigBee specification was ratified, the Alliance has been developing a testing strategy so we could assure the market that all ZigBee products using a ZigBee platform and application would be interoperable,” said Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance. “We spent the last quarter focused on finalizing this platform compliance process and are now executing a testing strategy intended to ensure the fast and successful development of ZigBee products by the member companies based on these platforms. The ZigBee-compliant platforms from Chipcon, CompXs, Ember and Freescale Semiconductor represent a culmination of almost a year’s worth of testing within the Alliance. These members have taken a leadership role in this process, and the Alliance appreciates their willingness to undergo extensive test scenarios in order to create a test standard and process for all members.”

The ZigBee Alliance selected National Technical Systems, Inc. and TUV Rheinland to be the official test houses of the Alliance and conduct the independent testing because of their proven national and international reputation and capability. The test houses collaborated with the Alliance to develop a test program that includes standard test cases and reporting metrics. Throughout the process, Daintree Network's Sensor Network Analyzer was used as the primary platform-independent means of observing, recording and verifying conformance of the platforms to the ZigBee specification and test plans. All of the platforms were tested at both test houses as well as with each other. Each test house now has a copy of these platforms, which they can use as a standard to test future platforms as they become available.

The Alliance is now completing its certification and logo program for testing end products, such as thermostats, smoke detectors, and lighting control devices based on ZigBee compliant platforms and approved ZigBee application profiles. For at least the first year, the ZigBee Alliance will require members to test their end product devices at one of the two test houses and then participate in an Alliance-sponsored interoperability testing event to confirm interoperability with other like products in a ZigBee network. Once a device has successfully completed both steps, the test house will issue a certificate declaring the product ZigBee-certified, which the company can then submit to the Alliance for logo issuance and licensing.

ZigBee Alliance

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