Ember Developer Blog

ZigBee and WiFi Update

I had previously posted an entry on ZigBee and WiFi with some data on channel usage for WiFi from some of my travels. Having recently completed a trip to Asia I wanted to fill in some scans from this region since it was not previously represented.

I have now completed 10 larger scans in cities. This includes 3 in the US, 2 in Europe, 4 in Asia and 1 in Australia. The data is surprisingly consistent showing WiFi usage heavily targeted to channels 1, 6 and 11. The usage on these 3 channels varies from a low of 72% of the access points to up to 88%.

I have heard continuing discussion about code size and its growth over time in the ZigBee stack. As a stack provider, Ember has tracked code size over time since our conversion from a proprietary network stack to the ZigBee stack. Our initial stack was ZigBee 2004, then ZigBee 2006 and then ZigBee PRO. I thought I would share some of this data from the past 3 years.

We just completed the ZigBee meetings in Vancouver. What a nice city and great place to visit. I recommend everyone try a jog through Stanley Park before going to any meetings in Vancouver.

It has been a while since I have posted here – must be the summer doldrums. It is time to get more regular in the updates and generate more comments around these postings. All of our customers are now moved onto this portal instead of using e-mail so the portal is getting plenty of traffic.

We recently completed the members meeting in Atlanta. It was another busy week with a lot of meetings. Attached is a set of slides providing and overview of the meetings and what was accomplished. I try to put these together after each meeting for those who were not able to attend.

For the quick summary here are the highlights: – another series of busy Smart Energy meetings. Everyone had some champagne to toast completion of certification and approval of the specification by the Board. Then it was back to work sorting the list of proposed enhancements to be incorporated.

We completed the ZigBee Smart Energy Certification last week in Pleasanton California. This event was the end of a testing cycle that started in December 2007 after the ZigBee Meeting in San Diego. We held testing events in January, March, 2 in April and then the certification in May. Each of the Companies involved had to attend all of these events to become certified so it is quite an investment of time. We had a good mix of all the types of devices within the SE specification including 6 Energy Service Portals, 3 meters, 3 programmable

The ZigBee Open House in Japan was held last week at LaForet Hotel in Tokyo. In addition to the technical proceedings, a dedicated group of ZigBee Tourists set off for Tsukiji fish market at 4am on Friday morning to catch the sushi auction, a daily event where a single large tuna can sell for more than US$60,000.

Ember's VP of Engineering, Skip Ashton, has produced a set of slides that will be valuable for anyone interested in learning more about what took place at the open house this time around.