RF offerings vendor Qorvo announced Wednesday that its Low Power Wireless business unit (formerly GreenPeak Technologies) is the first in the industry to receive the ZigBee 3.0 certification for its smart home gateway platform. A certified ZigBee 3.0-ready platform enables software developers to integrate the standard into their smart home applications.
ZigBee 3.0 facilitates communication and interoperability among a range of smart devices for home automation, light control, building automation, retail services, healthcare and telecommunication services. It combines the best capabilities of the existing ZigBee smart home profiles in a single unified protocol, and includes ZigBee Green Power, which supports battery-less, energy harvesting devices.
Qorvo serves diverse high-growth segments of large global markets, including advanced wireless devices, wired and wireless networks and defense radar and communications. It also leverages unique competitive strengths to advance 5G networks, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and other emerging applications that expand the global framework interconnecting people, places and things.
The ZigBee 3.0 SDK for smart home gateways provides an optimized design template enabling a quick system integration. Developers can focus on building a system without needing to dig into the details of the ZigBee 3.0 standard.
The ZigBee 3.0 SDK incorporates the GP712 radio communication controller chip from GreenPeak Technologies, and allows application developers to program a GP712-equipped gateway to communicate seamlessly with various sensors, controllers and systems within today’s Smart Home.
The SDK includes simplified software development models (APIs) that enable quick development of GP712-equipped gateway products as part of complete, end-to-end systems for the Smart Home. The SDK architecture is fully scalable and flexible, enabling smooth integration of upcoming standards such as Thread. When combined with the GP712, the SDK allows gateway manufacturers to remain protocol agnostic and support multiple communication stacks in a single device.
By incorporating the GP712 radio communication controller chip in the new ZigBee 3.0 SDK for smart home gateways, multi-channel radio support is guaranteed. It allows seamless communication with various sensors, controllers and systems. Its multi-stack protocol capability and the scalable software architecture enable application developers to integrate current and upcoming standards.
“Certified platforms are important tools for ZigBee 3.0 developers,” says Lee Ratliff, principal analyst for connectivity and IoT at IHS Markit. “Platforms such as this allow more companies to participate in the ZigBee ecosystem by reducing complexity and shortening time-to-market for developers. This is especially important for the newly revised ZigBee 3.0 standard which helps address the pent-up demand from developers eager to introduce compliant products.”
“Receiving the industry’s first ZigBee 3.0 certification underscores Qorvo’s leadership in providing complete solutions for the IoT market,” says Cees Links, General Manager of Qorvo’s Low Power Wireless business unit. “Our ZigBee 3.0 Software Development Kit (SDK) for smart home gateways allows software developers to use a mature and well documented model to deliver solutions quickly and cost effectively. Together, our SDK and Qorvo’s multi-channel and multi-protocol GP712 communication chip enable gateways to handle a variety of different connectivity standards. Developers can now plug in different application protocols as needed. Multiple leading gateway manufacturers have started the development of a ZigBee 3.0 gateway with Qorvo’s GP712.”
