Silicon vendor Sigma Designs introduced its fourth-generation Z-Wave architecture for home control systems. Sigma Designs’ ZM4100 Series Modules add more frequencies, memory and security.
The new frequencies make Sigma Designs’ Z-Wave products suitable for the Japanese market.
Home control is shorthand for a number of things, including monitoring, security, control, energy conservation and Smart Grid applications. Z-Wave over IP technology now allows users to remotely turn off lights, turn down thermostats, check for locked doors, or receive alerts from security or energy devices embedded in the home.
Z-Wave technology consists of miniature RF control devices that get embedded into various consumer products, along with a specialized mesh network protocol that enables centralized access and control of all of these devices, Sigma Designs explained.
With the lowest power available in an RF system, the ZM4100 series supports implementations for a wider range of small form factor, battery-powered devices, Sigma Designs said. Memory on chip was essentially doubled to 64 KB, allowing for the operation of dual-stack devices, supporting both the legacy Z-Wave protocol, as well as the IP protocol for remote addressability.
The ZM4100 developer kits will be available in December for manufacturers of home control devices.
