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The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi

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Re: The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi

#61

Post by doug_durham »

sashahilton wrote: post #57
andsoitis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To succeed, consumers need to be able to rely on standards conformance. Certification is an obvious way and that costs money. Is there a way without certification that results in high conformance that consumers can rely on?

The standards side of things is true, however this can be largely solved by providing a reference implementation, given that no device manufacturer is going to implement the stack from scratch. Automated testing of firmware would also work. As for high conformance... WiFi and BT devices manage to work well enough by simply buying a tested chipset and building on that, no external testing/fees necessary. I understand…

Having been in the business of creating standards compliant equipment in the past, the problem is not as simple as you state. You can provide all of the reference implementations you want and you still will get variances.

The state-of-the-art solution is to put a bunch of people on planes and burn a bunch of jet fuel to attend a "test fest". You can't issue interoperability until you do this. This costs money that needs to be paid by someone.

Re: The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi

#62

Post by microtonal »

samoit wrote: post #25
hobofan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the facto *de facto Any reason you prefer Matter rather than Zigbee? Zigbee has been a thing far longer than Matter, so I don't think the "one more standard" criticism is valid here.

It is supposedly an open source standard that do not requires internet connection to work, and can use regular wifi (2,4ghz) networks as a means to connect devices so you do not need to buy a hub for them. You can create your own hub with a mini pc for instance with a regular wifi card. No need for specific hardware

No need for specific hardware

Meet zigbee2mqtt and ZHA. You only need a cheap USB adapter as a Zigbee coordinator and you are ready to go.

Re: The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi

#63

Post by thequux »

hamdingers wrote: post #60
surajrmal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The model seems to work. Is there precedent for the alternative working out well?

Does a device that provides an interface via a HTTP server need to pass any kind of TCP or HTTP certification? Maybe I'm making some category error here but I can think of dozens of protocols that do not require certification.

As much as I dislike mandatory certification, I can understand the need for it in wireless battery powered devices: a malfunctioning decide can talk the battery life if everything within range, and most consumers aren't equipped to realize that this is happening much less identify the device that's causing the problem

Perhaps the solution is to make the spec open but make using the trademark contingent on certification (much like USB, for example)

Re: The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi

#64

Post by [deleted] »

simonjgreen wrote: post #58
EvanAnderson wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working well for device manufacturers who want users to forklift out gear every few years? I have been avoiding "IoT" in my home because I want stable 20+ year lifetimes for protocols and standards. I want to know that the outlets I hard-wire today will be controllable with whatever software I choose in 5, 10, 15 years. I want my thermostat to continue to have all its "smart" features for the lifetime of my HVAC syst…

You’re in luck! That’s Zigbee. (Not IoT)

[deleted]

Re: The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi

#65

Post by windexh8er »

willseth wrote: post #50
windexh8er wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's run (and continues to run) both ZWave and Zigbee networks for over 10 years I find the direction of Zigbee rather frustrating. They used to be the antithesis of Zwave with it's frustrating "licensing" and now seems to be as though they're towing that line. Most likely because they got in bed with Google, Apple and the garbage that is Matter.

What’s wrong with Matter?

It didn't solve any of the issues it proclaimed to. And, if you look across open platforms (e.g. HomeAssistant) it has, comparatively, low uptake on available integrations because Matter is a vehicle for proclaimed interop by walled garden experts (e.g. Apple, Google, etc).

Re: The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi

#66

Post by naasking »

andsoitis wrote: post #52
sashahilton wrote: post #34

All these new standards looking to become the successor to WiFi/Zigbee IoT devices, yet every single one makes the same mistake - they think that because they find ways to force certification, take away end user control and extract licensing fees, that they’re somehow going to convince people to buy it as the next big thing. I was cautiously optimistic when Matter/Thread was in its early days, but predictably as with…

To succeed, consumers need to be able to rely on standards conformance. Certification is an obvious way and that costs money. Is there a way without certification that results in high conformance that consumers can rely on?

> Is there a way without certification that results in high conformance that consumers can rely on?

Open source a reference implementation and a conformance test suite. Open, transparent, and low cost. Also, don't lock out devices that aren't blessed.

Re: The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi

#67

Post by intrasight »

naasking wrote: post #66
andsoitis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To succeed, consumers need to be able to rely on standards conformance. Certification is an obvious way and that costs money. Is there a way without certification that results in high conformance that consumers can rely on?

> Is there a way without certification that results in high conformance that consumers can rely on? Open source a reference implementation and a conformance test suite. Open, transparent, and low cost. Also, don't lock out devices that aren't blessed.

Why not have it be like the law profession? 100% open source with licensing.

Re: The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi

#68

Post by tzs »

retSava wrote: post #37
not_that_d wrote: post #23

I don't understand people criticizing this. Didn't they read the article? The new Suzi stuff doesn't want to replace Zigbee, and the new zigbee version is backwards compatible. What is the pain there?

I would assume, yet _another_ standard. There are a bunch of them, and product builders are taking a long long time to properly implement, and often buggy. And they often result in the consumer need to buy yet another gateway/router, and learn the ins/outs and quirks of another protocol that won't work properly in years, all the while two new competing standards have been introduced. An example - how long has Matter…

> An example - how long has Matter existed? Yet, it hasn't had a profile for smart plugs with energy monitoring (eg the 12$ IKEA one). Such a basic use case...

That was added with version 1.3 of Matter, released in the middle of this year. You just need to wait for your smart home ecosystem to support it and for IKEA to release a firmware update.

As far as ecosystems go, Home Assistant (HA) fully supports it, as does Samsung SmartThings. Google has a public beta, from what I've read. Amazon and Apple are in the on the way stage.

As far as device goes, all my energy monitoring smart plugs are Tp-link Tapo, and they have been quick to update firmware. I'm using several Tp-Link Tapo P110M Matter smart plugs [1] and a Tapo P316M Matter smart power strip [2] with HA.

The P316M, purchased in the middle of October, came with firmware that supported Matter 1.3 out of the box. I simply added it to HA using the "Add device" button on the HA screen and it worked.

The P110Ms, purchased at the start of this month, came with older firmware so they did not show energy use out of the box in HA. A quick trip to the Tapo app to add them to it during which it checks for and installs the latest firmware, brought them up to the latest firmware. After that the energy monitoring information showed up in HA.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKG52WQ4

[2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F5LNYTR7

Re: The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi

#69

Post by amluto »

willis936 wrote: post #45
brabel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope Zigbee stays. It’s widely used and works really well. Matter may be even better but it also makes it really hard for manufacturers to actually make products that can be sold cheaply. Zigbee is just good enough and I believe the push to replace it has ulterior motives.

Zigbee is indeed good enough. The issue is that it solves the problem well enough and doesn't allow for maximizing how much customers are milked for. So customers will always choose Zigbee over any other option that also solves the problem plus some useless features, less control, and increased security surface area. There is a very clear signal that is easy to pick up: either you support zigbee in your IoT device or…

IMO Thread has one major benefit over Zigbee: the Thread mesh can extend over Ethernet (via TREL). Zigbee ought to be able to do this too, but I’m not aware of anyone actually doing it.

There are a couple of in-progress implementations of Zigbee on a regular computer using Thread radios and the Thread RCP protocol. Maybe one of them will add the ability to use multiple radios.

Re: The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi

#70

Post by Spivak »

whitehexagon wrote: post #15

No thanks. Quite happy with my ConBee II and small collection of open hackable ZigBee devices thanks. Why would I want yet-another-standard with self-updating devices, using more power (strong cryptography), and closed to certified devices only. And Suzi sounds like it is going to stomp all over Lora? Hard to tell from that marketing fluff.

Yeah this all just seems objectively worse for end users, like me, who are spoiled with cheap reliable and completely isolated from the internet devices.
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