Welcome home to the 21st century

Our world is full of technological marvels that have enhanced many aspects of our lives. The unabated rise of the smartphone app in almost every aspect of modern life is also well understood. However our homes 'operate' in much the same way they did through most of the 20th century, despite the availability of connected hardware such as lamps, thermostats, locks, etc.

The uptake of home automation systems has been partly inhibited by the need for wired systems - a costly solution that also causes a lot of disruption during installation. Now, we don't need wires. 'Disruption-free' wireless technology is available as a globally acceptable standard and at low cost. While home automation systems can be complex to run, smartphones or tablets with their intuitive graphical interface provide a ready-made way to interact easily and conveniently with all devices.

Connecting to ZigBee Home Automation using NFC

Over the years there have been numerous competing connectivity protocol options. In a recent paper presented at embedded world - The Internet of Things in the home using ZigBee Home Automation - we demonstrated how ZigBee Home Automation (HA) could provide the standardized, secure connectivity and application functionality within the home.

For most domestic applications the default commissioning method could be similar to the push button method used to add WiFi devices to a router. However for more secure applications or devices with limited or non-existent user interfaces, such as sensors or light bulbs, the network key, PANID, radio channel and potentially device configuration can be loaded into the device via NFC transfer.

This bring additional benefits, in that commissioning can be controlled from a graphical user interface on a NFC enabled smartphone or tablet. New devices wishing to join can be viewed on a screen and the relevant ones accepted onto the network. Once the device has received the network key, it can fully participate in the network and can be bound to other devices to set up control relationships as required by the user.

Using internet application layers to connect to ZigBee

Connecting the home to the internet allows the development of new and novel services. However connecting ZigBee networks to the internet requires additional functionality to translate between ZigBee and internet protocols. For example, commands from home automation application interfaces such as Apple's 'Homekit', and 'Alljoyn' from the Allseen Alliance - must be translated into ZigBee's commands and addresses in a gateway device.

Using a layered approach to the software in a gateway brings numerous benefits; a ZigBee virtual machine layer can translate from an external application layer protocol to ZigBee. Similar approaches can be used to connect multiple devices using different network layers.

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