Essence Group Joins the Zigbee Alliance to Develop Open Standards for Smart Home Devices

The goal of the Connected Home over IP project is to simplify development for manufacturers and increase compatibility for consumers. The project is built around a shared belief that smart home devices should be secure, reliable, and seamless to use. By building upon Internet Protocol (IP), the project aims to enable communication across smart home devices, mobile apps, and cloud services and to define a specific set of IP-based networking technologies for device certification.

The industry working group will take an open-source approach for the development and implementation of a new, unified connectivity protocol. The project intends to use contributions from market-tested smart home technologies from various member companies. The decision to leverage these technologies is expected to accelerate the development of the protocol and deliver benefits to manufacturers and consumers faster.

"Essence is excited to join in and contribute to the standard by bringing its vast 25 years of experience and knowhow in developing and manufacturing radio IoT devices for the security, connected home and health care markets, currently producing over 10 million such devices per year," said Dr. Haim Amir, CEO of Essence Group. "As a global Software & IoT provider with a history of developing disruptive technologies Essence has always believed in the holistic vision of 'better life made possible' while building solutions at scale that emphasize security and, privacy together with an intuitive user experience."

Participating in the Connected Home over IP Project is important in strengthening and accelerating a global standard. Through it, Essence will demonstrate new abilities across different segments over the next decade.

"Industry players are working alongside each other through the Alliance to shape the future of the IoT using open, global standards," said Chris LaPre, Solutions Architect, Zigbee Alliance. "Our members together drive meaningful connections throughout the smart home, and we welcome new additions like Essence Group to our roster of IoT visionaries."

About Essence Group

Essence is a global provider of IoT connected-living and cybersecurity solutions for communication, security and healthcare service providers. Leveraging 25 years of experience and innovation with a global presence and more than 50 million devices deployed worldwide. Essence has strong strategic relationship with Verisure, the leading European provider of professionally monitored security systems and has a vast deployment in senior monitoring products in the US. Essence specializes in the IoT segment driven by deep R&D and systems integration including embedded Cyber security.

About the Zigbee Alliance

The Zigbee Alliance is the foundation and future of the Internet of Things. Established in 2002, our wide-ranging global membership collaborates to create and evolve universal open standards for the products transforming the way we live, work, and play. With our members' deep and diverse expertise, robust certification programs, and a full suite of open IoT solutions – including the recently announced Project Connected Home over IP – we are leading the movement toward a more intuitive, imaginative, and useful world. The Zigbee Alliance board of directors is comprised of executives from Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Google, IKEA, The Kroger Co., LEEDARSON, Legrand, Lutron Electronics, MMB Networks, NXP Semiconductors, Resideo, Schneider Electric, Signify (formerly Philips Lighting), Silicon Labs, SmartThings, Somfy, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, and Wulian. www.zigbeealliance.org  www.connectedhomeip.com