A recent study published by ABI Research titled “Commercial Building Automation” indicates that sensor networking technology ZigBee should start finding significant adoption in commercial building applications by 2008. There are three major markets for sensor networking: the home, commercial buildings and industrial facilities — and ZigBee aims to cover them all. For the home market, there are alternatives to ZigBee. In addition, there are some questions about its suitability. But according to senior analyst Sam Lucero, commercial building automation is a market where ZigBee is competitively positioned against other wireless sensor technologies. Commercial buildings represent a huge addressable market of field equipment currently using wired field buses to connect sensors and actuators with lighting, heating, ventilation, access control, and safety systems, according to Lucero.

He added, “ZigBee's features and functionality are suited to commercial building applications.” Of the five top vendors of building automation systems, which together control about 70% of the market, four — Johnson Controls, Siemens, TAC and Trane — have introduced wireless products based on ZigBee in the past year, and the fifth — Honeywell — is moving toward doing so. Over the next five years, up to 20% of commercial building automation system field equipment may “go wireless,” seeking the lower costs, better control, and greater flexibility that such systems deliver. However, there are regional differences, as per the ABI report. For instance, in North America and Europe, commercial building markets are largely mature, while greater “greenfield” opportunities can be found in Asia.

“Asian markets are fragmented, and we may see a rash of acquisitions as the “big five” push into the region, stated Lucero. “In North America and Europe, this is a tough and conservative market,” noted Lucero. “We are hearing that building owners and managers in Asia are more interested in using wireless than their counterparts in North America and Europe, where it is more a question of replacing existing wires.”

ABI Research also believes that a lot of the growth will come from new, application-specific deployments in selected vertical industries. The report concluded that, “The mainstream market is clearly moving ahead with ZigBee for automation, so smaller players that do not have a wireless strategy formulated (or are in the process of creating one) will be at a disadvantage.”For more information, visit www.abiresearch.com.