#ENERGY: "Light Fixtures Join Internet of Things"

The Internet of Things has nothing on the humble light fixture, thanks to system-on-chip (SoC) solutions that are cheap enough to give every light fixture a network address. For instance, Texas Instruments (TI) has a SoC programmed for the ZigBee Light Link standard that it is demonstrating for the first time at Computex in Taipei this week: R. Colin Johnson


The ZigBee second generation CC2530 SOC (system-on-chip) is a ZigBee "golden unit suite" that is targeted for low power applications and small form factor designs.

Here is what TI says about ZigBee Light Link: Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NASDAQ: TXN) today announced the industry’s first demonstrations of the new ZigBee® Light Link standard on the CC2530 ZigBee system-on-chip (SoC). Developed by leading lighting and technology companies within the ZigBee Alliance, ZigBee Light Link standardizes wireless networked LED lighting systems making them easier to install, manage and operate than previous closed proprietary systems. As an industry leading solution, TI’s CC2530 is a certified Golden Unit for ZigBee Light Link enabling developers and manufacturers to quickly build and test ZigBee Light Link products for interoperability. Learn more about ZigBee Light Link and TI’s efforts in this Mobile Momentum blog post.

TI’s ZigBee Light Link demonstrations during Computex Taipei this week, June 5 – 8, in booth TICC 101D, will showcase a complete LED light management system using a smartphone, low cost gateway and LED devices. Direct lighting controls will be shown using an Android smartphone outfitted with a microSD card that integrates the CC2530 SoC to control lighting directly. The second demonstration uses an Android smartphone connected to a low-cost gateway (a CC2531 ZigBee USB dongle attached to a BeagleBone, the Sitara™ AM335x ARM® Cortex™-A8 processor-based open-source community board) to control and monitor ZigBee lighting and other devices.

The CC2530 is a true SoC solution for IEEE 802.15.4, ZigBee and RF4CE applications. With an integrated RF transceiver, microcontroller, in-system programmable Flash and RAM, the CC2530 enables robust wireless network nodes to be built with very low total bill-of-material costs. Various operating modes make the CC2530 suited for systems where ultra-low-power consumption is required, such as LED lighting, and the SoC operates at temperatures up to 125 degrees Celsius for industrial applications. Combined with TI’s industry-leading Z-Stack™ ZigBee protocol stack, the CC2530 SoC provides a robust and complete ZigBee solution for fast time to market of ZigBee devices.
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