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Wireless Networking Technology Hardware

Coming Soon: ZigBee Control by PDA 77

Posted by timothy from the wireless-torchiere-is-a-zigbee-pole dept.
palmtops writes "The new ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4) wireless protocol designed for home automation is getting a lot of exposure lately and got some more exciting news today. Wired Home Weblog has a brief mention and press release about the first ZigBee SDIO card that allows your home to be controlled by your PDA. The card was introduced by C-Guys at Cebit today and will definitely add a whole new dimension to home automation."
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Coming Soon: ZigBee Control by PDA More

Coming Soon: ZigBee Control by PDA

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  • For great justice! (Score:5, Funny)

    by PopeAlien ( 164869 ) on Friday March 11, 2005 @09:58PM (#11916468) Homepage Journal
    ..oh nevermind..

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday March 11, 2005 @09:58PM (#11916470)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:All this needs (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You are (understandably) confusing the company X10 [x10.com] with the X-10 protocol [smarthome.com]. Unfortunately, people only seem to remember those vastly annoying pop-ups. And the hot models, of course.

      The similarity of their names is further compounded by the fact that the X10 cams are compatible with the X-10 protocol.

  • Good times ahead (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Geogriffith ( 861880 )
    Don't we all look forward to the day when we can turn off the lights, not by primitive methods like getting up, but simply clicking upon our computers? And then there will be problems of "house-hacking", when teens with wifi will roam the neighborhood, causing your lights to flicker, your oven to overheat, and your fridge to stop running. Convienience can only go so far. Is it really too hard to get up to turn off a light (or get a smaller lamp, if you're arthritic)?
    • And then there will be problems of "house-hacking", when teens with wifi will roam the neighborhood, causing your lights to flicker, your oven to overheat, and your fridge to stop running.

      Teen: Uh, hello, yes, is your fridge running?
      Adult: Oh, I'm not falling for that old joke--
      Teen: Oh yeah? Go look at it!
      Adult: Oh... oh God... no... my food... I... I need that to live!
      Teen: (snickering) *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* (pushing 1-3-3-7 on the phone)
    • Yeah no kidding! I hate all these stupid modern conveniences. Lousy automated Video Home System recording devices with their timers and programmability. Next you'll be able to connect to your video recording device via web browser and schedule shows you forgot to program before leaving the house in a mad rush. Oh haha won't the teens have fun programming it to record random channels. Clearly it's better to not have such a convenience. And this whole business of home automation. What the hell is wrong
      • Ooooh... touched a nerve here. Sounds like somebody had to get off his Monster Ass to close the blinds again! Now if you only had the $8,000 PottyMaster robotic tushie-wiper, you could be saving some real energy...
    • Is it really too hard to get up to turn off a light (or get a smaller lamp, if you're arthritic)?

      Yeah for some people it is hard to get up to turn off a lamp. They're called disabled. Asshole.
    • "Don't we all look forward to the day when we can turn off the lights, not by primitive methods like getting up, but simply clicking upon our computers? "

      My X-10 radio remote has been doing that for over 10 years, and it wasn't a new gadget when I bought it. This will need to be better than a light switch/dimmer to be considered an improvement. There will be uses for it, but think beyond the lights.

    • My business partner and I just bought a house that's almost 4,000 square feet.

      Controlling the lights in a house this massive is a genuine pain. It would be very cool to be able to punch one button and know all the lights were off, or dimmed to a cheap to run intensity. That's why I'm looking into home automation alternatives.

      This being said, could someone explain why Zigbee and the other newer alternatives are better than X10? What was wrong with X10, and what do the new alternatives do that's better?

      • Re:Good times ahead (Score:3, Insightful)

        by colenski ( 552404 )
        could someone explain why Zigbee and the other newer alternatives are better than X10?

        'cause X-10 doesn't scale. It only transmits on 1 phase of the power, and you need a phase coupler to ensure it covers a moderately sized house. In practical use, you'd be hard pressed to get it to work consitiently in a > 3000 sq ft house.

        Oh yeah, and there's no security layer, so it's possible to turn on your neighbor's lights when you turn yours on if they choose the same "channel" as you.

        I am an X-10 pro

      • Re:Good times ahead (Score:3, Informative)

        by plover ( 150551 ) *
        Zigbee is poised to become a standard that will control everything from home theater, TVs, HVAC, radio, lighting, security systems, garage doors, to mice, keyboards and joysticks. Among all these applications, it's designed to form ad-hoc networks. For example, your TV may be the first receiver of your remote control's signal to turn up the temperature on your thermostat, and it would pass the request from node to node until it reaches your thermostat, which then would use Zigbee to signal your furnace or
        • Interesting information, many thanks.

          But it seems like it might not be ready for prime time. Their products page [zigbee.org] is "Coming Soon" and nothing more.

          Who are the leading manufacturers of devices for this technology? I'd really like to check it out.

          D
          • That's easy: here's the Zigbee members page. [zigbee.org] You'll see a lot of the current players in home automation are involved, and others who appear to want to get into it.

            I found a lot of this out last year when Zigbee first caught my attention. I saw an article in Scientific American where the US Army is experimenting with distributing small RF-linked sound sensors to pinpoint the source of a gunshot in an urban environment. The timing of the report was all that was needed to locate the sniper in about two s

            • That list doesn't seem to be particularly useful if I actually want to find home control equipment that conforms to that standard.

              Looks to me like it might not yet exist, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

              D
              • Oh, sorry, I didn't realize I was implying that any of this stuff was commercially available yet. The standard itself was just ratified, and according to the CABA (see page 20) [caba.org] they're hoping to see Zigbee-enabled consumer products start reaching the home automation market in early 2005.

                Go on, be an early adopter. You know you want to ... :-)

                Hell, I want to too! I've resisted X-10 since the early '90s because I figured something else better had to be coming along soon (boy was I optimistic.) I just

                • I talked to the nice folks at Perceptive Automation [perceptiveautomation.com], makers of the Indigo home automation program for the Mac.

                  They are expecting products "over the next few years", and of course their own support is going to appear roughly in parallel with the technology's release.

                  I must admit a prejudice against X10, mainly due to the company with the same name. It produces bad products at admittedly super-low prices. I don't care so much about the pop-under ads (web sites have to eat, after all), but about the laugha
    • I look forward to the days when humanity will be nothing more than a spineless deformed lump on a couch that hits a button for every need. Porn will be pumoed straight into our minds to let us believe that we are actually having sex with a real person. Procreation will be nothing more than collecting some oozes and incubating them to create another blob. Sustenance will be completely intravenous. Lights will come on and off as needed. And there won't be a single entertainment show even closely resembli
    • Is it really too hard to get up to turn off a light?

      No, and if that was why people installed home automation systems, that would be a valid jab. Very few people will spend hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of dollars just to avoid getting up. My own needs were based on practicality. One, my home is set back far from the street, and stumbling around in the dark outside when I come home late is not my idea of fun. So, my system is set to turn on the outside lights a half hour after sundown (even th

  • Ideal for parents! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Friday March 11, 2005 @10:02PM (#11916489) Homepage
    Parents out of the house...

    *Beep, beep, beep!*

    ALERT: Security cameras have determined that your daughter has invited friends in for alcohol and sex. Would you like to:

    (a) Shut off the electricity
    (b) Lock the doors to keep out further visitors
    (c) Place the burglar alarm into continuous operation
    (d) Start the custom "Scream" apparatus to spur an evacuation?

  • Why is this linked to a blog? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Plagiarism is bad [c-guysusa.com] mmmmkay.

  • Controll? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 11, 2005 @10:12PM (#11916545)
    Could it be that the GNAA have teamed up with the IEEE to produce some kind of wireless trolling standard?

  • ZigBee was not design for home automation (Score:3, Informative)

    by Bob Fr ( 667095 ) on Friday March 11, 2005 @10:19PM (#11916581)
    It's a protocol for sensor networks. It's being used for some home automation products but it's a not a very good match since the ZigBee design point assumes a relatively static configuration

  • Sorry I'm late boss... (Score:4, Funny)

    by 88NoSoup4U88 ( 721233 ) on Friday March 11, 2005 @10:46PM (#11916738)
    My door got hacked. :)

  • Neighbor's music (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gyorg_Lavode ( 520114 ) on Friday March 11, 2005 @10:53PM (#11916770)
    So now I can shut off my neighbor's music from the privacy of my own home?

    (notice: did not RTFA)

  • Zigbee != IEEE 802.15.4 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Russ Nelson ( 33911 ) <slashdot@russnelson.com> on Friday March 11, 2005 @10:55PM (#11916780) Homepage
    Zigbee are proprietary layers added to IEEE 802.15.4. They aren't the same thing. Zigbee is NOT an open protocol.
    -russ
    • Also, here is evidence to show that you are again totally wrong.

      http://www.javvin.com/protocolBluetooth.html

      This is an article on the different naming conventions in the 802.15 standard.

      • I fail to see how that page disproves the GP. IEEE 802.15.4 is a standard for the data link and physical layers. ZigBee is an application layer that sits on top of IEEE 802.15.4. You can run any application layer you want on it. In fact, http://www.dlpdesign.com/ [dlpdesign.com] is selling a ZigBee compatible 802.15.4 transceiver that is loaded with a protocol based on Freescale's SMAC application layer.

  • 802.15.4 Protocol (Score:5, Informative)

    by Spellunk ( 777915 ) on Friday March 11, 2005 @10:55PM (#11916783)
    As for saying the ZigBee is for static networks: that is 100% wrong.

    ZigBee's main purpose is to create self-assembling, autonomous networks.

    This means that well written firmware will enable a tech with no education to just replace nodes if something goes wrong, versus having to understand anything about networking.

    My job is in the development of ZigBee networks and I have worked with these devices for about a year now.

    The main purpose of the ZigBee standard is to develop low-cost deivces that operate, assemble, and route messages with no human intervention. The latest chips cost less than two dollars, meaning a whole node can be designed for much less than $10.

    • Product cost =~ chip cost * 4.

      Thus, if the latest chips cost less than two dollars, a whole node can be designed for less than 8 dollars, NOT "much less than $10".

      Anyway, whose chips are you talking about, and for that price surely you're talking about a leaf node, not a router node.
      -russ
      • Ahh the problem is that the high frequency crystals are a little bit expensive, causing the price to be a bit higher.

        first of all, the new chips are fully functional devices, capable of routing messages. Check it out at:

        www.chipcon.com Or: search mouser.com for CC2500

        I am surely taling of a router node, that is why this new standard was developed.

      • in quantitys in the tens of thousands it does make a difference.
    • The main The main purpose of the ZigBee standard is to develop low-cost deivces that operate, assemble, and route messages with no human intervention.
      I swear... they're watching me.
    • Sort of like digital ants.
    • > The latest chips cost less than two dollars,
      > meaning a whole node can be designed for much less than $10.

      Currently, it's an order of magnitude above that.

      This page [c-guysusa.com] from the website says the cards in this article will be "available by mid-March for under $100.".

  • A new hobby for wardrivers: (Score:3, Funny)

    by infonick ( 679715 ) * on Friday March 11, 2005 @11:09PM (#11916858) Homepage
    ZigDriving

    Move Zig!

  • Zigee (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wpiman ( 739077 ) on Friday March 11, 2005 @11:17PM (#11916897)
    I run a program called Homeseer [homeseer.com] which allows you to control various devices in your house via X10, relay control, Zwave-- you name it.

    It is Windows base- so mod me down away. If you are a Linux fan and a PERL expert- Mister House has a big following.

    Homeseer has a web interface- so control of these devices via a pocket pc is possible now. There are plans for Zigbee control in the future as well.

    I think HS has the correct paradigm- a central PC controlling the house. Certainly you need to keep it on- but adding a $100 card to every machine you want to control devices seems silly when anything with wifi can do the job- and will allow you to read slashdot as well.

    And yes- my garage door can be opened up via my webpage. No- you can't have the link.

  • control your house (Score:4, Funny)

    by Eric Smith ( 4379 ) * on Friday March 11, 2005 @11:19PM (#11916908) Homepage Journal
    allows your home to be controlled by your PDA
    Reminds me of a Steven Wright line:
    One day, when I came home from work, I accidentally put my car key in the door of my apartment building... I turned it... and the whole building started up.... So I drove it around.... A policeman stopped me for going too fast... He said, 'Where do you live?'... I said, 'Right here.'
  • "All your house are belong to us"
  • Exciting news would be a cheap CAN node with some practical functionalitiy as an alternative to the ridiculously expensive CBUS. Or a Python equivalent of the excellent but Perl "Mister House". I thought xAP had potential but it's turned into a crap Windoze app. Shame. Sorry but there is currently no cheap but decent HA stuff out there except the slow and error prone X10. We are still living in the 60's.

    Phillip.

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