Much like how it joined the Wireless Power Consortium, the standards group behind the Qi specification, Apple has very quietly signed up to the Thread Group, the body pushing the 802.15.4-based low-power mesh personal area network (PAN) protocol. It comes in the same week as Thread’s rival, and sometimes good friend, Zigbee passed 500mn sales, with projections to hit 3.8bn by 2023. However, the Zigbee Alliance is claiming that it will account for 85% of 802.15.4 shipments, which leaves very little room for Thread. Spotted by IHS, analyst Lee Ratliff said that this could be huge news for Thread, especially if Apple incorporates it into HomeKit. However, both Apple and Thread are well behind Riot’s expectations for smart home progress…