GreenPeak Technologies, a low power RF semiconductor company, has announced that it has shipped more than 100 million IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee chips into the smart home market.
GreenPeak RF chips are used in a wide range of consumer products including set-top boxes and gateways, remote controls, home monitoring devices for security, energy efficiency and lifestyle applications.
Many of the new set-top boxes and internet gateways already have ZigBee inside, providing great opportunities for device and application developers to introduce Smart Home solutions that can connect to this available home sensor network, as well as for operators to offer additional services.
ZigBee is one of the three leading wireless technologies for the connected home. WiFi is used for high bandwidth, content rich applications with access to power and Bluetooth is used to connect wearables to smart phones. ZigBee, based on the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless standard, is the low power version of WiFi and ideally suited for connecting sentrollers (sensors, actuators and controllers) to the internet with extremely long battery life requirements. For example, remote controls using ZigBee can operate for over a decade without recharging or battery replacement.
“Currently, most homes have about ten wireless devices connected by WiFi”, says Cees Links, CEO and Founder of GreenPeak Technologies. “However, within a few years, we expect over a 100 ZigBee or other IEEE 802.15.4 based connected devices in each home. This includes sensors, appliances and gateways used for monitoring and controlling the home environment for security, energy management and lifestyle applications. GreenPeak is a proven leading and successful ZigBee technology supplier. With well over 100M ZigBee chips installed in the market, we plan to continue our growth in the ZigBee market as well as expanding into other IEEE 802.15.4 based communication standards.”
According to Mareca Hatler, Director of Research at ON World, “ZigBee is dominating the IEEE 802.15.4 ecosystem and is set to lead the Smart Home and Internet of Things (IoT) market. Annual shipments for IEEE 802.15.4 low power wireless chipsets doubled in 2014 and are on track to increase by 550% by 2020. ZigBee standards are expected to be used in 80% of the 802.15.4 annual chipset shipments.”
