The ZigBee Alliance has announced the Green Power feature, which powers products such as switches and dimmers with available energy harvesting sources rather than using a battery or AC mains power.
The Alliance, a nonprofit with about 400 members that promotes worldwide adoption of ZigBee as the wirelessly networked, sensing and control standard for use in consumer, commercial and industrial areas, will host a free public webinar on Green Power on Jan. 24, 2013.
Green Power is an optional feature for the ZigBee PRO feature set that is part of the enhanced ZigBee 2012 specification recently ratified and released to Alliance members. It expands the capabilities of ZigBee PRO, allowing consumers and businesses to add ZigBee devices to many more areas including locations where power is unavailable, not allowed for safety reasons or for historical preservation purposes.
Lisa Arrowsmith, manager of connectivity research for IHS, says energy harvesting in commercial building automation can reduce operating costs.
As a part of the Alliance test and certification plan development process, it selected golden unit development kits from GreenPeak Technologies, Philips, Schneider Electric and Texas Instruments. These implementations will serve as golden units against which future ZigBee Certified products using the ZigBee 2012 specification will be tested. NTS, TRaC and TUV Rheinland provided testing services.
Products using Green Power will be eligible to wear the ZigBee Certified product logo.
Introducing ZigBee PRO’s new eco-friendly Green Power feature will be held at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time and include industry speakers. Space is limited and advance registration is available.
