Our sister publication, Faultline, this month spoke to GreenPeak’s CEO Cees Links about the smart home in general and GreenPeak’s ZigBee ambitions in particular. They were told in no uncertain terms that the smart home was happening, and that the potential market is huge ‘ 600m homes, an average of 100 devices per home, resulting in 60bn potential nodes. With GreenPeak currently shipping one million ZigBee chips each week to OEMs, we’re certainly prepared to lend its CEO our ears.
The GreenPeak projection for the smart home consists of three overlapping phases, in a time frame that we think can only reflect the homes of affluent westerners and not of the average global citizen. But that of course makes absolute sense, as the smart home itself is most likely to make it to customers as part of a pay-TV or internet offering ‘ it won’t be long until triple and quad play are joined by a ‘quint’ play offering where home automation is offered on a subscription basis.
Links said that GreenPeak was targeting pay-TV operators and ISPs who were looking to add smart home offerings to their subscription packages. As both would have CPE installed in the home, they are uniquely placed to infiltrate the customer home without having to depend on a consumer buying a separate hub or box ‘ rather a consumer would find themselves with the appropriate smart home equipment (in the form of a home gateway or set-top), which the operator could then leverage to push a subscription home automation package.
Links observed that there are many brands which are looking to subvert this model and enter the smart home ecosystem directly, although he believes that the operators are far more strongly placed to seize the emerging market than the likes of Samsung (or, presumably, Apple, poised to enter this space soon ‘see separate item).
Phase one of GreenPeak’s vision spans 2012-15, with a ZigBee-based set-top box or home gateway placed in the home. Phase two sees that unit serve as a central hub for security and energy management, at some point during 2013-2018. The final phase spans 2015-2020 and will see the set-top govern and fully integrate the home’s environmental management and security.
GreenPeak manufactures a range of ZigBee modules for different implementations in the home. The 7 Series is the chip found in the set-top or gateway and one of this family, the GP711, is used by Comcast in its X1 set-tops to link to the ZigBee remote control that is supplied with the unit. Another module, the GP501 serves as a ZigBee transceiver, which forms the backbone of the ZigBee mesh network. This is used by the GP410 and other 4 series modules to coordinate with the 7 series chips at the heart of the system.
Each series of modules uses a slightly different method of communication, tailored to fit the intended application. For instance, the Comcast remote control uses the low-latency RF4CE (RF for consumer electronics) protocol , because of its need for a speedy user experience, whereas something like a window latch will use ZigBee Pro ‘ as it only requires very small data rates but needs a long lasting battery life.
ZigBee is an (almost) open managed standard used by a number of vendors, including GreenPeak, Atmel, Freescale, Texas Instruments and Silicon Labs. Membership of the ZigBee Alliance requires an annual fee but provides early access to new developments and specifications of the protocol. It broadcasts in the unlicensed 2.4GHz spectrum globally, but uses other bands according to geographic regulations including 915MHz in the Americas and Australia and 868MHz in Europe. Moving out of the 2.4GHz spectrum entirely may become a preferential option as home WiFi network congestion becomes an increasing problem for smart homes.
Links was adamant that only an open standard such as ZigBee could prevail in IoT, largely because economies of scale are harder to come by in proprietary ecosystems. He was also not shy in criticizing proprietary alternatives like Z-Wave, claiming it was rushed to market, costs five times more than a ZigBee chip, and isn’t secure enough for the home. ZigBee has enjoyed a higher level of R&D, which Links feels makes it the superior ecosystem and product and he claims there is no need for wireless protocols other than WiFi, ZigBee and Bluetooth. In that order, the three protocols provide communication for the three personal spheres that they occupy ‘ outside the home, inside the home, and wearables and device interfacing.
The personal sphere would use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE, now rebranded as the frustratingly misleading Bluetooth Smart) for instance if a person in the house needs to interact with a device in the connected home. For example, the wireless key fob used to open the front door would use BLE to activate the lock, but the lock would relay its status information to the home via ZigBee.
As Bluetooth is the established protocol for smartphones and the wearable devices that are linked to them, Links does not see ZigBee replacing BLE in handsets or other devices such as key fobs, despite Samsung’s plans to incorporate ZigBee into some handsets. Bluetooth is too ingrained in the ecosystem for ZigBee to replace it, and to that end Links does not see BLE and ZigBee as true competitors ‘ he thinks they both have their own spheres and specialties.
Moving beyond the home, Links feels that ZigBee is not yet mature enough to branch out of the home and into the smart city. He noted that it needs to be ‘industry hardened’ before it can be installed and trusted to govern mechanisms such as traffic control and lighting without security concerns that might be orders of magnitude more dangerous than a single home being compromised. In particular, the end devices of a ZigBee network need to be secure from unauthorized access as a malicious attack could reach the heart of a ZigBee network from any point in the mesh.
As for the future of GreenPeak, Links said that the company remains focused on catering for the smart home. When prompted he said that although there were healthy profits to be made in the million ZigBee chips he ships to OEMs each week, GreenPeak was choosing to channel a lot of its returns into future R&D. In that regard, profitability is a secondary goal.