Z-Wave, ZigBee upgrade IoT efforts

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Amid a daily flow of smart home products riding Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, two pioneers of the Internet of Things are expanding their platforms and partnerships. Sigma Designs will upgrade security of its Z-Wave home network in February, about the time the rival ZigBee Alliance starts certification for its unified version 3.0 specification.

The Z-Wave Security 2 framework will start a beta test in February of version 6.7 if its software development kit. It adds support for Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman keys and TLS 1.1 for secure tunneling of its hybrid Z-Wave/IP (ZIP) traffic.

The capabilities plug holes for man-in-the-middle and other attacks. They also enable secure multicasting and support for multiple security domains.

For its part, the ZigBee Alliance ratified its 3.0 spec and aims to start certifying products for it in February, about a quarter later than originally planned when the spec was announced a year ago.

Version 3.0 rolls six ZigBee specs into a common applications platform, including profiles for home and building automation, LED lighting, healthcare, retail and smart energy. It does not include Smart Energy 2, a smart meter profile based on IP and RF4CE, a version of ZigBee geared for remote controls.

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