Following two years of effort, the ZigBee Alliance has ratified the first ZigBee specification, making the development and deployment of power-efficient, low-data-rate monitoring, control, and sensing networks a reality.

For members of the alliance that have already announced ZigBee-ready technology, the ratification of the specification will enable them to quickly enhance their products and begin testing to obtain ZigBee-compliant certification.

Companies such as Figure 8 Wireless, Freescale, CompXs, Eaton and Atmel have achieved a head start over the competition due to their heavy involvement in the ZigBee Alliance that wrote the specifications.

These companies, along with several others, have already developed ZigBee products because they knew the major details that would be included in the final ratification. "The announcement of the ZigBee specification is a major milestone in wireless networking," says Andrew Wale, vice president of Business Development, Advance Transformer Company, a division of Philips Electronics North America Corp. "ZigBee is poised to become the leading wireless technology for a myriad of uses, ranging from building automation to industrial and residential applications."

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