Standardization of Z-Wave

A standard can be defined generally as a construct that results from reasoned, collective choice and enables agreement on solution of recurrent problems. A standard can be viewed as striking a balance between the requirements of users, the technological possibilities and associated costs of producers, and constraints imposed by goverment for the benefit of society in general.

More functionally, an industry standard is a set of specifications to which all elements of products, processes, formats, or procedures under its jurisdiction must conform. The process of standarization is the pursuit of this conformity.

As a standard, it must have four basic functions: Quality/Reliability, Information standards, Compatibility/Interoperability, Variety Reduction. I am going to analyze Z-wave standard based on these four basic function.



Quality/Reliability
Standards are developed to specify acceptable product or service performance along one or more demensions such as functional levels, performance variation, service lifetime, efficiency, safety and environmental impact.

Many RF technologies communicate across the public bands. Consequently, the public band are crowed with interference, resulting in poor reliabilty for most RF technologies. Z-Wave minimizes these "noise and distortion" problems by using transmission mechanisms such as 2-way acknowledgement, condensed frame formats and random back-off algorithms, ensuring highly reliable communication between all the devices in the network



Information Standards
Standards help provide evaluated scientific and engineering information in the form of publications, electronic data bases, terminology, and test and measurement methods for describing quantifying, and evaluting product attributes.

All the information about Z-Wave technology is open to the users, including product information, publications, evaluation of Z-wave technolgy and so on. The related information could be found in the websites:
http://www.zen-sys.com
http://www.z-wavealliance.org
http://www.zwaveworld.com



Compatibility/Interoperability
Standards specify properties that a product must have in order to work with complementary products within a product or service system.

In Z-Wave, interoperability is guaranteed by use of the appropriate Device Class Specification and by the Z-Wave Certification Program. The Device Class Specification governs standardization on command and device level for all home control products. The work is carried out in the Z-Wave Alliance ensuring that all relevant market inputs from Z-Wave partners are injected into the Device Classes. The certification program ensures that all products, which carry the Z-Wave logo, have gone through the certification process.



Variety Reduction
Standards limit a product to a certain range or number of characteristics such as size or quality levels.

All the products carried Z-wave logo work in the same frequency bands and are applied in the mesh network. They have the same protocol stack and frame structure. Before puting in market, the products must go through the Z-Wave certification and the Device Class Specification to ensure the achievement of requirments and quality.



Z-Wave is not an open standard. The industry leading device specifications of Z-Wave will be made available royalty free based on a reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND)-Z model. With RAND-Z Zynsys promises to license the technology at no charge. But the implementers still have to get the licenser's permission to implement. So while the licenser may not make money off the deal they can still stop any products they don't like or do more subtle things like drag out the licensing process. To accelerate the adoption of Z-Wave standard, Z-Alliance and its members strive to develop and open Z-Wave technology further. The figure following shows the standardization process of Z-Wave.




Figure from :http://www.z-wavealliance.org