ZigBee PRO starts to flow

Date: 1/12/2008

ZigBee module OEM Telegesis announced today it has commenced volume customer shipments of its ZigBee modules based on the ZigBee PRO feature set.

Telegesis was the first company to achieve certification based upon the ZigBee PRO feature set in February this year. The Telegesis respected AT Command layer was tested by test house National Technical Systems Inc of Culver City California where Telegesis was granted certification for their Manufacturer Specific Profile (MSP) making their ETRX2 module the world's first compliant ZigBee PRO module.

This latest move to high volume production and general availability of ZigBee PRO modules is important in that the PRO Spec is a significant update to the ZigBee spec first published in 2004 and includes a host of key improvements to network scalability, security and resiliency.

ZigBee’s ability to form wireless mesh networks which self form and heal and can also scale to many hundreds of nodes has lead to high acceptance in applications such as building automation and automatic meter reading. The ZigBee PRO feature set improves scalability by adding features such as Stochastic Addressing allowing nodes to randomly pick addresses eliminating the need for the network to reassign addresses when a new node joins a large network. This avoids potential address exhaustion and ‘churning’ of network tables.

Also added is the ability for a network to aggregate routes through the use of ‘many to one’ routing allowing each device to share the same routing path reducing broadcast and network traffic and greatly improving the efficiency and stability of the network routing table.

Within a ZigBee network, paths are selected on the quality of RF communication. This quality between nodes is often asymmetric - better in one direction than the other. ZigBee PRO includes Asymmetric Link Handling which uses regular information exchange between nodes to automatically select optimal links greatly improving network performance.

Two networks can overlap; something which becomes more likely in large networks. ZigBee uses IEEE802.15.4 as a basic identifier - the ‘PAN ID. ’ This allows different logical ZigBee networks even on the same channel. If two networks overlap, giving a PAN ID conflict ZigBee PRO includes a mechanism to detect and resolve these issues automatically.

In addition, ZigBee Pro security has also been improved; a network wide security key is now mandatory and adds further protection for key management and distribution. Energy management is also improved as in networks where ZigBee nodes run on batteries power management is crucial. ZigBee PRO allows end nodes to turn off for fixed periods of time allowing nodes into longer sleep periods of ‘Hibernation’ or shorter periods of ‘Napping’ as the application requires.

All Telegesis ZigBee PRO products are built around Ember EM250 with mesh networking provided by EmberZNet PRO 3.1 the first ZigBee software to support the ZigBee PRO Feature Set
Telegesis managing director Nicholas Gomersall commented: “Telegesis was the first company to gain certified ZigBee PRO compliance with our module range and we’re pleased that our ongoing efforts mean we can now offer our customers true production volumes of ZigBee PRO modules for use in real world applications”.

About Telegesis
Telegesis is a specialist provider of ZigBee module technology based in Marlow UK. Telegesis modules enable companies to design in ZigBee PRO wireless capability without the need for specialist RF or embedded firmware capability. This reduces cost and risk for the design engineer whilst getting the wireless solution to market faster. Telegesis is a Participant Member of the ZigBee Alliance.
www.telegesis.com

Contact:
Dave Blissett- Marketing Manager
Telegesis, Marlow UK.
  +44 (0) 1628 894347  
dave.blissett@telegesis.com
www.telegesis.com