Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON), the world’s leading control networking platform provider for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), announced a distribution agreement with global electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation, the industry leader in electronic component selection, availability and delivery. Under the agreement, Digi-Key will distribute worldwide, except Japan, Echelon’s portfolio of products—including chips, modules, routers and software—for the IIoT market.

“An important element of positioning Echelon to meet the needs of commercial and industrial customers looking to leverage emerging IIoT technologies is having broad and diverse distribution,” said Ron Sege, chairman and CEO of Echelon. “Digi-Key has global reach and unparalleled logistics capabilities, as well as the ability to fulfill products quickly and efficiently. This agreement makes it easier for engineers to get our products, and it signals an important milestone in Echelon’s continued leadership in the IIoT market.”

Market research firm IHS predicts that the IIoT, which is expected to be the largest segment of the broader Internet of Things (IoT) market, will add 500 million new units per year through 2017.

“The IoT market represents the new great growth opportunity for components in the overall embedded market, and Echelon is one of the most important IoT enablers in the embedded and industrial space,” said Mark Zack, vice president of Global Semiconductor Product at Digi-Key. “We’re excited about adding Echelon’s products to our line card of best-of-breed components that will be of interest to developers building IoT products, so we can more effectively address the growing IoT and IIoT markets.”

About Digi-Key Corporation

Digi-Key Corporation, based in Thief River Falls, Minn., is a global, full-service provider of both prototype/design and production quantities of electronic components, offering more than 3 million products from more than 650 quality name-brand manufacturers. With more than 975,000 products in stock and an impressive selection of online resources, Digi-Key is committed to stocking the broadest range of electronic components in the industry and providing the best service possible to its customers. Additional information and access to Digi-Key’s broad product offering is available at www.digikey.com.

About Echelon Corporation

Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON), a pioneer in developing open-standard control networking platforms, delivers all the elements necessary to design, install, monitor and control industrial-strength ‘communities of devices’ within the lighting, building automation, grid, Internet of Things, ‘maker’ and other markets worldwide. Echelon develops and sells complete systems and subsystems for target applications, plus system-on-chips (SoCs), embedded software, and commissioning and management tools for OEMs. With more than 100 million Echelon-powered devices installed worldwide, the company helps its customers easily and safely migrate existing control systems to the most modern platforms, while bringing new devices and applications into an ever-growing global Industrial Internet. Echelon helps its customers reduce operational costs, enhance satisfaction and safety, grow revenues and perform better in both established and emerging markets. More information about Echelon can be found at http://iiot.echelon.com, or www.echelon.com and at the company's blog at blog.echelon.com.

Echelon and the Echelon logo are registered trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

This press release may contain statements relating to future plans, events or performance. Such statements may involve risks and uncertainties, the risk that Echelon's offerings by themselves or combined with other applications or offerings do not perform as designed or do not offer the expected benefits and savings; risks associated with international sales; and other risks identified in Echelon's SEC filings. Actual results, events and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Echelon undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.