ZigBee Alliance Passes 1,500-Product Milestone, Adds Vice Chairmen

The ZigBee Alliance passed the 1,500-product milestone and added two vice chairmen, an indication that growth “is happening and going to continue to grow at a faster pace,” CEO Tobin Richardson emailed us Friday. Musa Unmehopa, Philips Lighting director-intellectual property standards, moved from secretary-treasurer to vice chairman, and board member Jean-Pierre Desbenoit, Schneider Electric ICT standardization and industry relations director-global strategy, was elected vice chairman. Michael Koster, SmartThings principal research engineer, succeeds Unmehopa as board secretary and Dee Denteneer, Philips Lighting director-standards, was elected treasurer. The board shift means there’s "more interest in leadership of the ZigBee Alliance across industry segments,” said Richardson. The alliance passed 1,500 certified products, from more than 200 manufacturers, last month, spanning applications in smart home, smart building and smart city that are in use “across continents, in space and under the oceans,” it said. At The ZigBee Alliance Winter Summit last month, participants shared developments on ZigBee 3.0 and the alliance’s Common Applications Library that consolidates previous market-specific ZigBee profiles into a single offering, it said.