Are ZigBee and EnOcean about to go to war?

We are working on a very interesting article for the next issue of Incisor. This centres around a recent announcement from the ZigBee Alliance that it will bring to market a new generation of wireless sensors based around energy-harvesting, batteryless technology. If this sounds to you like the trail that EnOcean has been blazing for the last 10 years, then you are not alone.

The EnOcean Alliance is up in arms. As we understand it, the controversy primarily surrounds IP infringement. Some have argued that the ZigBee Alliance cannot sustain a batteryless mantra nor deliver said products onto the market, as it would be clearly infringing a number of patents that have been largely generated by EnOcean since the early 1990s (when the company was part of Siemens). The questions that we have asked the ZigBee Alliance to answer include:

- How would you address such shortcomings and these rumourmongers?

- Likewise, do you (the ZigBee Alliance) have new energy harvesting IP that does not infringe existing IP?

- It has been suggested that ZigBee (+PRO) is still not fully interoperable - is this correct?

- ZigBee is not as prolific as the ZBA suggests - can you clarify the deployment/success of the technology?

- It has been suggested that ZigBee Green Power is just more padding for the non-standard - can you respond?

The Incisor article, providing the viewpoints of both the ZigBee Alliance and EnOcean, plus member companies, is being written by Dean Gratton, and will appear in the August issue of Incisor, which will published on the 1st of August. Incisor can also be downloaded from this site - www.incisor.tv