After the WiFi Alliance confirmed yesterday that the new HaLow WiFi standard will reach the first IoT devices at the end of the year, now Google, Amazon, Apple and the Zigbee Alliance have confirmed the new standard also for this year. 2021.
The Zigbee Alliance is responsible for managing one of the most used wireless standards in the world for IoT thanks to its low consumption. The new standard that the four parties have jointly developed was announced at the end of 2019 under the name Connected Home over IP , abbreviated as CHIP or Project CHIP.
CHIP: the standard arrives this year
The new standard has suffered some delays, but it finally looks like it’s ready to hit the market. This new standard aims to offer unified connectivity for Google, Amazon, Apple and Zigbee products to communicate with each other, so that companies creating new devices can make them compatible with any smart ecosystem on the market.
This initiative is open source, and it is good for both companies and consumers, who can buy any device without worrying about whether it will be compatible with their ecosystem or not. In addition to the big three companies mentioned, there are about 170 more that are part of the Zigbee Alliance, such as Samsung SmartThings, IKEA, NXP Semiconductors, Signify and Silicon Labs.
The standard uses Bluetooth LE for initial setup, while WiFi leaves it for bandwidth-intensive tasks, such as sending images from a security camera. It is also compatible with Thread , a standard for low-bandwidth mesh networks, such as motion or temperature sensors. Thread is already included in devices like the 2nd Gen Nest Hub, the HomePod Mini, or the latest Eero WiFi routers.
Zigbee and Z-Wave will disappear
As the company announced in a webinar, the first CHIP-certified devices will hit the market by the end of 2021, so it may be that by Christmas this year we can buy the first devices compatible with the standard. Among them, we will find light bulbs, blinds, heating, air conditioning, televisions, smart garage doors, security systems, WiFi routers , and a long etcetera.
In addition to being included in devices that are launched on the market at the end of the year, there will also be adapters to be able to add this connectivity to current devices. Thanks to this, if we have a device that is compatible with HomeKit but not with Alexa, we can make it compatible. With CHIP, other old standards like Zigbee and Z-Wave will disappear , so both the purchasing and setup processes will be easier.
