Silicon Labs and Sigma Designs, Inc. announced the completion of Silicon Labs’ acquisition of Sigma Designs’ Z-Wave business, including a team of approximately 100 employees, for $240 million (€194.47 million) in an all-cash transaction. Z-Wave is a leading mesh networking technology for the smart home.

HomeGrid Forum has announced that MaxLinear has joined AT&T, BT, CenturyLink, Marvell and Sigma Designs on the Board of Directors to help support the deployment of G.hn technology.

Many of us love the idea of smart home devices – simplifying tasks like turning on lights or locking doors – but even early adopters will admit, they can be a pain to configure. There are too many steps, too much guesswork and too many potential security holes.

IoT is taking hold in a broad range of industries from automotive to farming to manufacturing. One of the biggest growing markets is the smart home with many areas ripe for development including controllers, lighting, thermostats, security, and sensors.

In a win for the wired home networking industry, four G.hn chipset manufacturers converged in Geneva, Switzerland, for the world’s first open G.hn Interoperability Plugfest.