In the midst of its acquisition by Silicon Labs, Sigma Designs has taken the wraps off of its new 700-Series Z-Wave chips. With heaps of smart home devices being unveiled at CES, Sigma is hoping to push its new silicon’s capabilities into a growing ecosystem that seems to finally be ready to take off. Z-Wave’s chief rival Zigbee shows no signs of going anywhere, but it has been a very notably quiet CES for Thread – though it might still be too early to pass judgment on the newest mesh networking rival, Bluetooth Mesh. The most notable new Z-Wave feature is the claimed ten-year battery life, for devices sending up to ten messages per day, using a coin-cell battery. For…