The Zigbee Alliance was created to develop a set of standards for wireless home automation devices that use the Zigbee communication protocol. Its mission was, and still is, to help simplify, harmonize and build global open standards for the Internet of Things (IoT). Over the years, the group has added specialties such as smart energy, green power and home entertainment systems, which required expanding beyond the Zigbee protocol and working with other wireless standards. As the consortium has grown, the organization recognized the need to better reflect its role as an industry standards body that is trying to make the IoT better for everyone, so it recently rebranded itself as the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA). At the same time, the group also gave Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP) a new moniker: Matter. I spoke with alliance officials Michelle Mindala-Freeman, Chris LaPre, and Ted Miller, who gave me a rundown of the changes, how they’ll affect the IoT, and a little something about Zigbee on Mars!
The Current Status of the Connectivity Standards Alliance
The Alliance says that 2020 was a record-breaking year, with more than 560 Zigbee technology devices certified, including Philips Hue, Ikea Home smart, as well as Amazon Alexa and eero products. To date, more than half a billion Zigbee chipsets are featured in existing products, with another 4 billion expected to ship over the next few years. In fact, thanks to its durability, reliability and energy efficiency, Zigbee is the communication technology that NASA chose for communication between the Mars Perseverance rover and its helicopter—more on that later.
In addition to its interoperability with other standards, Zigbee’s common data model has evolved to accommodate more devices and use cases. Member companies can tweak the specs to their needs and, if they desire, allow other companies to use the modified technology. Adjustments that appeal to enough customers may eventually become part of the standard.
The alliance has created an additional working group to govern the common data model. The team is looking at products that aren’t currently part of the standard, such as smart faucets, irrigation systems, energy management systems and renewable energy devices.
How Matter Connects IoT Ecosystems Together
Matter—formerly known as CHIP (Connected Home over IP)—represents a new foundation of IoT connectivity, helping to provide consumers and developers with simplicity, interoperability, security and reliability. With the launch of its Matter brand, the alliance has achieved a new milestone, as members have ratified a feature-complete specification that allows CSA to shift its focus to fine-tuning and testing the spec. The foundation of Matter that breaks down the barriers between protocols is Multi Admin, which allows any Matter device to connect to any ecosystem or group of ecosystems. For example, a homeowner with a Philips Hue lighting control system will be able to add any Matter device to both the Hue network as well as an Apple HomeKit network, assuming both networks are Matter-enabled.
Video courtesy of CSA.
Late in 2020, the alliance sent out a call to action, asking companies to participate in creating and finalizing the Matter (still known as CHIP at the time) standard. So far, 30 companies, including Tuya Smart, OPPO, Xiaomi, Assa Abloy, and Corvo, have added their names to the alliance membership list in 2021. The spec itself is still in development, so no products have been Matter certified at the time of this writing. Several member companies have products that are currently in testing; those are the most likely candidates for the first round of certification. Once the spec is completed, other companies will be able to go through the certification process. To assist developers who are designing Matter-enabled devices, CSA offers a repository of reference designs, development guidelines, testing procedures, and third-party tools.
The Alliance Members and Products
Numerous CSA members have begun implementing the Matter specification, which is expected to be officially released in the fourth quarter of 2021, into their products. Philips, one of the original companies involved with Matter, will automatically update its Hue Bridge software, allowing users to add other Matter devices while retaining their original network setup and personalizations. Google has announced its intention to make all Nest and Android devices Matter compatible, allowing the Google Assistant and other Android apps to work with any Matter device, regardless of whether it’s a Google product. Ubisys, a German provider of home automation products, incorporates the Zigbee Green Power protocol in many of its products, including its energy-harvesting wireless switches and sensors. Home security company ADT, which recently partnered with Google, has also joined CSA and the Matter working group to help create an interoperable smart home environment.
A Matter of Security
As an IoT standard that sits on top of existing IP connectivity, security is integrated into Matter’s nucleus. Every Matter device joining a network is authenticated, messages are encrypted using AES-128 at both the network and application layers, and over-the-air updates are secured. Companies can add their own security on top of that, such as Silicon Labs’ Secure Vault, which decreases the likelihood of a device being cloned.
Zigbee on Mars
Five years ago, Tobin Richardson, CEO of the Zigbee Alliance, was invited to a retreat sponsored by Amazon. He met the project lead for the Mars Perseverance rover, and they discussed the communication needed for Perseverance to control the Ingenuity drone. The drone is autonomous, in that it flies a preprogrammed route while sending telemetry and sensor readings to Perseverance. Zigbee’s thousand-meter range, light weight, and low power requirements fit the bill perfectly. In fact, the 900-MHz radios on Perseverance and Ingenuity are commercial Zigbee products—a pair of LS Research SiFlex modules—that worked right out of the box, with no modifications needed for the Mars mission.
According to NASA, “Each radio emits approximately 0.75 W at 900 MHz with the board consuming up to 3 W when transmitting and approximately 0.15 W while receiving. The link is designed to relay data at over-the-air rates of 20 kbps or 250 kbps over distances of up to 1000 meters. A one-way data transmission mode is used to recover data from the helicopter in real-time during its brief sorties. When landed, a secure two-way mode is used. Due to protocol overhead and channel management, a maximum return throughput in-flight of 200 kbps is expected while two-way throughputs as low as 10 kbps are supported if required by marginal landed circumstances.”
Shaping the Future of the IoT
As the IoT grows, we can expect to see more smart connected devices facilitating predictive maintenance on manufacturing and power generation equipment, optimizing the use of fertilizers and pesticides on crops, allowing autonomous vehicles to communicate with one another, helping physicians to remotely monitor patients’ vital signs, and collecting data from virtually anything that has a sensor on it. This will bring a slew of security issues such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, privacy and identity breaches, and even the possibility of cyberterrorism. Just as species evolve in order to survive changes in their ecosystems, the Connectivity Standards Alliance continues to adapt to fit the developing IoT environment by updating standards and providing development tools for designers.