Creative Connectivity

Will Google kill ZigBee?

Or will it main Bluetooth? Or Wi-Fi? Or maybe Z-Wave? Or any of the multitude of other short range wireless standards. It’s a question that was raised last week when Google did a keynote presentation on Android@Home at their I/O Conference where they announced a wireless light bulb which could be turned on and off from a mobile phone. The technical details are very sketchy – much of it coming from Lighting Sciences Group, who did the accompanying demonstration. It’s unclear whether it’s a new radio, a new protocol, a new standard or even what frequency it’s running at. But you don’t expect the absence of little details like that to stop speculation.

The greatest level of speculation has come from the smart energy industry, who are suggesting that ZigBee could be the main casualty. Jesse Best at Smart Grid News asks whether this will take away ZigBee’s momentum. And there’s an interesting range of comments about that on his site about that, which are worth reading. Throughout the industry, Google’s announcement is making people question whether they’ve made the right choice?

I’m not sure that anything Google does will displace ZigBee from its place in smart meters. That’s actually quite a closed market, as most utilities don’t really want to share that data with consumer devices. Where it is a threat is in home automation. Home Automation is still a very nascent market and Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and ZigBee are all pitching to own it. The reason I think they are at risk is because of what Google can bring, which is an API (Application Programming Interface). Google has succeeded in areas like mapping because it makes it easy for developers to access and mash up data. In contrast, wireless standards shy away from making their stacks easy to use, particularly for embedded designs. If Google can make it easy, thousands of garage and backroom developers will take it and innovate with it, and the existing standards may all find themselves left behind.

Smart Energy Profile 2.0 – a case of too much PAP?

Just when you though Smart Energy was settling down, and it was going to be smart meters all round, the smart grid movement is getting its knickers in a twist. It’s not a problem about what needs to be done, but about the standards, what goes into the standards and who is responsible for them? In the past few weeks both NIST and the ZigBee Alliance have had some major tantrums, which raises questions about the speed and degree of technology push that is being forced on the industry.

There is no lack of agreement about the need to improve the grid and the way that we consume energy. Growing demand, political concern over the stability of supplies, climate change worries, new challenges in the form of electric vehicles and decades of underinvestment in generating capacity and the grid have persuaded Governments around the world to support and mandate investment in new “smart” technology from smart meters in homes to intelligence in the grid. The last time the world saw a similar level of stimulus was in the 1930s, during the great depression. So this really is likely to be a once in a lifetime event. The political will is there, the question is who decides how it is going to be done? Groups like NIST in the US are pushing hard to put things in place, but are groups like this too academic in their approach? Over the last year they’ve set up eighteen Priority Action Plans or PAPs to oversee development. (A potentially unfortunate acronym as my dictionary defines pap as “worthless or oversimplified ideas”). And according to a recent pronouncement they obviously don’t think the industry is doing enough to meet the challenge. But before we look at that, let me share a quote with you:

“I hate those guys. I hate those legislators and politicians – not because they restrict business and screw up the markets, even though they do and it does. I hate governments because I know those guys. I went to school with them. And let me tell you, the weakest, most ignorant, most drunken incompetents work for the US government. And the bottom of the barrel, know-nothing dicks design the regulations for a market they know nothing about. Why should we look at the regulations they’ve put in place by committee and go “Yeah, you suck at your jobs, fine, we’ll ignore that and suck at ours too?”

Not my words, but those of Lucy Prebble from her brilliant play “Enron“. It’s a diatribe that she gives to Jeffrey Skilling – Enron’s President, as his empire starts to crumble. Strangely, from a character that has little to commend himself throughout the rest of the play, it’s a dramatic moment where you suddenly start to feel sympathy with him, particularly if you’ve ever worked in a regulated industry. Of course, that speech is just fiction and has nothing to do with the current situation…

Smart Meters and IP – an Inconvenient Truth

Around a hundred years ago, George Bernard Shaw quipped that England and America were two countries divided by a common language. Today there is a similar, very evident gulf growing between them in their attitude to smart metering standards. That gulf is increasingly becoming an ideological one, with the difference focussing on whether to take IP to the meter. It’s a difference of opinion that has little to do with those involved in metering or even the grid itself, but by others who want to impose their vision and their technologies upon its future.

The whole concept of bringing Internet Protocol to battery powered devices in this new era of the Internet of Things is not confined to smart metering – it’s a question that is being wrestled with by many standards groups who are trying to balance issues of accessibility, interoperability and power consumption. In general, the closer a product is to commercial deployment, the less sway the IP proponents have. But they have the US power industry in their sights.

I don’t believe that their arguments add up. If smart metering is to work it needs to look at the whole picture and make pragmatic decisions. The UK approach seems far more sensible, which may be why it’s making far better progress. In contrast, there’s a distinct feeling of banana skin about the IP advocates and their promotion of ZigBee Smart Energy Profile 2.0. As time goes on it looks like an approach that is having to conceal more and more inconvenient truths behind a veil of smoke and mirrors.

PublishedMarch 8, 2011March 8, 2011
2 Comments on My Last Nokia

The recent partnership between Nokia and Microsoft has created a lot of comment, with the more upbeat view being that it combines Microsoft’s skill in software with Nokia’s expertise in hardware. That reminded me of the quote from Bernard Shaw to a beautiful actress who suggested they should have a baby so that their child would have her beauty and his brains. “But Madam,” Shaw retorted, “what if the child has my looks and your brains?” We don’t yet know what this union will bear, but there are good reasons for asking whether many phone users have already bought their last Nokia?

The marketing world has always understood that if you want to catch a consumer, catch them young. Tom Lehrer parodied it well with his song “The Old Dope Peddler” who “gave the kids free samples, because he knew full well, that today’s young innocent faces, will be tomorrow’s clientele”. The consumer electronics industry is equally aware of that principle, as I was reminded today when I went past a window exhorting parents to start their children off on a life of electronic materialism with “My First Sony”.

Nokia must wish that they could be that confident. When I upgraded my phone to a Nokia E72 this year I thought harder about that decision than I had for most of my previous upgrades. What finally won me over and stopped me jumping to Android were two features – Ovi Maps and a battery life of four or more days. But I bought it with the realisation that my next phone would probably not be Finnish. With the announcement of the new relationship between Nokia and Microsoft, I wonder whether their marketing departments need to get together and make a final push for short term market share with the slogan “My Last Nokia”?

It’s one of those questions that could enter the public consciousness, like “do you remember where you where when Kennedy was assassinated”, or “when Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon”? For today’s generation of phone users, they may look back and wonder “where was it that they bought their last Nokia”.

Let the Wireless Wars Begin

It’s been an interesting week for the short range wireless standards. The two terrible teenagers, ANT and ZigBee have both shown signs of their growing maturity, starting to position themselves as far more serious contenders in the market place. In the wake of their move from adolescence, a new toddler has emerged in the form of Toumaz, with their announcement of their Telran chip.

What has been missing is any reaction, or in fact much sign of any action from their elder siblings – Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. As large manufacturers continue to tighten their belts, one of the less noticed effects has been a steady withdrawal of engineering support from standards organisations. In the past, many of these have been staffed with seconded experts from the big names in industry. Increasingly those big names are withdrawing, relying largely on chip vendors to push their interests within the standards organisations. That’s left Wi-Fi and Bluetooth battling to persuade industry members that either standard has a development future, with certain of their members considering that the job has been done.

Which opens up the field for the former competitors to claim some potentially interesting parts of the market.

Smart Appliances – a Dangerous Distraction for Smart Energy

Over the past six months, culminating in the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this month, there’s been a growing clamour about smart appliances and how they will fit into the smart energy ecosystem. It’s not just the technology advocates who have been selling the story; big players in the White Goods industry, like GE and LG have been out there promoting the story as well. They have a view of a connected appliance that is constantly talking to your electricity meter, their service and maintenance site, your power provider, and for all we know, a dishwasher in Korea that’s wasting its time on the machine equivalent of Facebook.

It’s a nice high-tech story, but does it make sense? You can see how it has evolved from the effort that is being put into smart grids. The theory is that to reduce the strain on generating capacity, it makes sense for energy hungry appliances in the home to adjust their start time, so that they run when there’s least demand for electricity. Hence by connecting appliances within the home to your smart meter, or your utility’s web site, they can be told when to turn on or off. Which, on the surface, makes a certain degree of sense.

But there’s another side to the story. The connected appliance doesn’t save energy – it just means that it uses the same amount of energy at a different time. The other approach is to make the appliance more energy efficient. When you look at the relative efficiencies of different products, the manufacturers who seem most enthusiastic about smart appliances are those who sell some of the least efficient ones. It makes one wonder whether their interest in connectivity is just a PR sticking plaster to cover up their poor performance. Instead of investing in research they see an easier win in investing in media techno-babble.

The problem with doing that is that the promotion of smart appliances ups the requirement specs for the smart meters and gateways that are at the core of home energy management. Rather than let the smart metering industry have a period of relative stability to confirm their technical specifications, complete trials and educate users, this new mania around connected appliances adds a level of unnecessary technical uncertainty. As such it is a very dangerous distraction to the core requirements of smart energy.