Zigbee Interoperability

Hi,

 I am sure and I am hoping that this will be the first of multiple answers as I am by far no expert here, but to give you a couple very brief points

The intention of Zigbee is that certified products of the same type (Eg Home Automation Profile, or Smart Energy Profile) should be interoperable.  Of course some manufacturers like to add their own little twists and unfortunately this sometimes appears in the network formation process.   Manufacturers do try to occassionally do some interoperability testing.

One good source would be the alliance page www.zigbee.org

And of course ... further opinions on this forum as well. 

Hi Chakra,

First there has to be interoperability at the NWK stack profile level. Currently two stack profiles (or feature sets) are defined. Zigbee, and Zigbee Pro. Both of which fall under the Zigbee 2007 specification. You can simply look at the Zigbee feature set being Zigbee 2006 + some enhancements such as frequency agility, fragmentation, PAN ID conflict resolution.

The boundary of which interoperability exists at the NWK level is that Zigbee devices may only join Zigbee Pro networks as end devices, and vice versa. This is due to the differences between addressing and routing between Zigbee and Zigbee Pro. So, simply put, if you have a Zigbee 2007 non Pro end device or Zigbee 2006 end device it will be able to join a Zigbee Pro network and communicate with the network. A Zigbee 2006 end device will however, not understand messages that are related to new 2007 feature such as frequency agility, fragmentation, and PAN ID conflict resolution. But, if the application doesn't use these features then it's not an issue.

As far as application level interoperability goes, this is the whole reason for getting your product logo certified! This helps ensure that your product will be able to communicate with devices from other vendors that use the same application profile. Currently those that are specified by the Zigbee Alliance are Home Automation and Smart Energy and others are in work.

Hi,

thanks for your help. Surfing on the Net, I haven't found examples of interoperabilty ( papers, reports,demos..etc)

with the exception of this one :

http://www.aei.tuke.sk/pdf/2007-04/11_Varchola.pdf

However, many companies are really interested to know the feasibility of the Zigbee  interoperability (not only from a theoretical point of viewlike the standard assures but  practically implemented).Do you know any published examples of networks that use different manufacturer chips ?

Thanks in advance.

Hi,

I have problem that TI Zigbee PRO DOES NOT associate with the Digi maxstream xibee PRO.

However, if I used Zigbee 2006 it work okay.

Have you ever encounter that problem? I would appreciate if you could advice what to do next.

Thanks,

James

I haven't had any personal experience with Digi ZigBee devices.

ZigFest is the ZigBee Alliance's informal interoperability event. A quick Google search didn't turn up any clearly applicable hits on "Maxstream" and "Zigfest".

There are interoperability issues between ZigBee 2006, ZigBee 2007 and ZigBee PRO:

 1) PRO devices will operate as End Devices on a ZigBee ‘06 or ‘07 network, and vice versa

Hi,

As Scott points out there are ways to combine 2006, 2007 and 2007 PRO devices with the restrictions he mentions; however, my experience is that it is one thing what the specification (and by that the different stacks/solutions) provides (and how you can combine it) and it is another thing how you configure the different stacks/solutions. Obviously they will not work with each other if they are setup differently. Things that could be set up differently could be how to commission your network (e.g. which channel and PAN ID to use to join/start the network), security, etc.If you look at the threads in the forum posted by musicfan (http://e2e.ti.com/members/1375742/default.aspx); you can see that e.g. both platforms seem to use a different level of security out of the box.

-LL-

Hello forum from total neophyte.

I have an existing HA system and wanted to pair devices from different manufacturers.  Purchased a simple door sensor but it is not recognized by existing system. 

How to begin?

How to marry different vendor devices without programming anything? 

Can devices be tuned to same frequency or is there a common interface from Ti to marry the devices with the existing smart APP?

DGG

If the device uses Zigbee HA profile, it should be no problem. To find out why it doesn't work, you can use ubiqua packet analyzer to check messages.

What is ubiqua?

where can I get i?

how do i use it?

Thank you for your quick and helpful answers, but I am not an engineer who would use the ubilogix software. 

It was my belief that zigbee devices were compatible between vendor products. 

Apparently vendors can customize their  hardware and sofrware to make it proprietary.

I am looking for  simple solutions to expand my HA system and not be locked into only one vendor.

You said you have a HA system but do you have Zigbee coordinator built inside? Do you know who is your HA system vendor? You information is not enough for me to give you suggestion.

Distributor is iControl Energy.  Using "Remote Solutions" gateway hub, a ventstar programmable thermostat, and 2 appliance control modules by CentraLite; Zigbee certified.

I'm not sure what the coordinator is.

I wonder the problem might be iControl Energy uses Smart Energy profile but other devices use Home Automation profile.

Is there any way to determine what is being used and how to intercept correct profile?

I have very little documentation on units.

Since Distributor is iControl Energy, you should contact them to get user manual to confirm which profile the hub uses.

Thanks for your help.