Lighting companies endorse new wireless lighting standard

The Connected Lighting Alliance has announced its endorsement of ZigBee Light Link as the preferred common open standard for residential connected lighting applications, simplifying choices for both lighting companies and consumers.

ZigBee Light Link allows consumers to gain wireless control over all their LED fixtures, light bulbs, timers, remotes and switches, using systems developed by an array of manufacturers. Currently, several companies offer wireless lighting products for the residential market. However, because many of these products are not based on common interoperable standards, consumers are often confused about what systems will support their needs and the lighting fixtures installed in their homes.

This decision represents the first time an alliance of leading lighting companies has unanimously endorsed a common open standard for wireless lighting solutions.

“Having such broad support from leading companies is a significant milestone in residential wireless lighting becoming mainstream. It will increase the number of interoperable wireless lighting solutions, and simplify decision-making for lighting companies and consumers,” said Zoltan Vamos, Chair of the Board of Directors of The Connected Lighting Alliance.

Following eight months of close collaboration between its member companies to study and evaluate multiple open standards, The Connected Lighting Alliance concluded that ZigBee Light Link enables easy-to-install wireless lighting systems, natively supports a wide array of lighting features, and ensures product interoperability.

“ZigBee Light Link is specifically developed for interoperable and easy-to-use consumer lighting and control products. Products using this standard will let consumers change lighting remotely to reflect ambiance, task or season, all while managing energy use and making their homes greener,” said Tobin Richardson, CEO of the ZigBee Alliance.

The ZigBee Light Link standard will encourage the development of robust, interoperable wireless lighting systems.

“Already, a number of companies have adopted ZigBee Light Link to enable residential lighting, with further adoption by other tier-one lighting providers projecting to follow suit,” said Phillip Maddocks, analyst, low-bandwidth and smart networks at IHS. “According to the latest IHS research, more than 10 million ZigBee-enabled light bulbs are projected to be shipped for the residential market by 2017 and conforming to a common standard will improve interoperability which offers significant advantages to both the consumer, and the lighting provider.”

Connected lighting is also evolving to become part of a larger connected home ecosystem. To support this evolution, The Connected Lighting Alliance is reaching out to other standards bodies to ensure that ZigBee Light Link is supported by other home automation protocols, such as ZigBee Home Automation and ECHONET Lite.