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lkujala
This article is an inaccurate representation of events related to the Zigbee ...
dougwithau
No, not even close. I work with people involved with the standard and ZigBee ...
Vote delays smart grid software
Rick Merritt
4/21/2011 7:22 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Some smart grid deployments could be delayed as much as six months due to a decision this week to create a new protocol for the Smart Energy Profile 2.0 standard.
SEP2 is a key software layer for bringing smart grid data into the home. It adds support for any network transport including Wi-Fi and HomePlug powerline to the existing SEP 1.0 standard based only on Zigbee.
The 2.0 standard was set for ratification as early as this week when Zigbee chip vendor Ember called for the addition of a new protocol, said a source involved in the standards effort. Ember said the existing protocol based on HTTP over TCP was "too chatty," and called for the addition of an alternate protocol based on UDP.
Engineers working to finish up the HTTP protocol will need to create the new protocol from scratch before the standard can be finished, and that could take six months, said the source.
The move may have been motivated by a desire to drive early deployments to SEP1 using Zigbee rather than SEP2 and Wi-Fi. But the move could backfire, driving some utilities that already have working SEP2 software to Wi-Fi, the source said.
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dougwithau
4/22/2011 11:25 AM EDT
No, not even close. I work with people involved with the standard and ZigBee committees.
The SE 2.0 standards are not fully baked. There are real issues with small devices, the security, and mesh routing.
Passing an incomplete specification would delay the deployments even more. Learn the lessons of the Osborn 2.
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lkujala
4/27/2011 12:01 PM EDT
This article is an inaccurate representation of events related to the Zigbee Smart Energy 2.0 vote. The discussions of the working group are confidential in order to promote a frank discussion about the technical proposal. The anonymous source for this article has not only violated the confidentiality agreement, but also misrepresented what was actually said. As always, ‘trial by media’ is not a legitimate approach to engineering a protocol that needs to work reliably for the next 25 years. If you have a comment about the proposed specification, download and read the technical draft yourself and submit your comments to the Zigbee Alliance.
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