On the Radar
Last updated June 18, 2007 9:00 PST
Interview with Don King
Catherine LaCroix talks with Don King, product manager
for emerging technologies with Jasco
about the company's recent introduction on Z-Wave products.
Jasco is a privately held company based in Oklahoma City.
The company holds two of the six GE branding licenses worldwide
for home electronics and for consumer electronics products.
ZWW: What does the home control market have to offer
consumers?
King: Last year when I broke my leg, I was in the
process of testing some of the products and it was great
to be able to turn the lights on and off without having
to get up to do it. It just makes life so much easier. There
are a number of different avenues that these products are
great for, including the average consumer, of course, but
also special needs applications.
ZWW: Why did Jasco decide to develop products on
the Z-Wave platform?
King: As part of the licensing agreements with GE
we took over its smart home products several years ago.
Part of those products are lighting controls or small home
alarm systems, the DIY type of thing. So, when we looked
at the smart home category, we felt that lighting controls
and automated lighting controls made perfect sense with
the GE brand name. Then we started looking at all the various
technologies and ways to approach this. Some of the products
that we acquired through the GE process were radio frequency
lighting controls, but it was a proprietary technology,
so it doesn't work with anything else out there on the market,
which means the consumer would have to stick with that one
technology to do the whole house.
We wanted to see what we could do for the average consumer
who is going to shop at the superstores or the home improvement
stores. We looked at various technologies, such as the power
line carrier that's been around for 25 or 30 years and other
radio frequency technologies like Zigbee. While it's a competing
standard to Z-Wave, it was designed mainly for industrial
and commercial applications and it's now being migrated
into the home. But Z-Wave was designed specifically for
residential use. It's not as robust as Zigbee, but it's
much more flexible for what we're trying to do, which is
reach the average consumer.
Z-Wave made the most sense because it is a reliable technology
with a lot of major consumer companies backing it and developing
products for it. If there's going to be a technology that
takes over, it's going to have to come from the consumer
demanding those products. We feel that this technology is
probably going to be the best shot over all of them.
ZWW: Is this the future?
King: We hope so; home control has been around for
years. When you look at home control theater and home control
systems, they've always been available, but only for those
who could afford to pay for the larger systems. When we
look at the awareness
factor, the consumer is starting to see shows on TV
on how to do home control, so the awareness of what can
be done is increasing rapidly. What goes with that is that
Z-Wave allows you to do that at a much more economical level
than the high-end systems.
When you look at the future, everybody remembers the Jetsons
cartoons with the characters talking to the house. We're
seeing that more and more in cars, with voice recognition
and navigation systems. The natural progression is to have
your home react in the same way. It may be years, but again
the technology is starting to catch up with the ability
for people to do it.
ZWW: Some companies are looking at this as an installer
market; some see it as a DIY market. Which way are you headed?
King: We're looking at the DIY
crowd. The beauty of the Z-Wave technology is that you
use the existing wiring; you don't need new wires. Everybody
needs lighting, it doesn't matter whether it's your business
or your home, you've got to have lighting of some kind.
So when you look at what is important to the customer, such
as convenience and safety, it's about managing what really
matters the most to you. When you look at today's society,
people are so pressed for time that controlling things easily
and being able to control things conveniently is really
becoming important. So the future of home control is coming,
it's probably not going to happen right away, but it's really
popular and widespread.
ZWW: What products does Jasco offer?
King: When we decided on Z-Wave we looked at the
average consumer in the home and what they want to do. It
down determining what are the core products they need to
reach about 80 percent of what they want to do. So what
we're launching with are two different handheld remote controllers.
We have two different in-wall dimmers that would replace
an existing wall switch, one is the standard single control
with one switch that would control the light and the other
is a kit that has the Z-Wave-enabled switch and an auxiliary
switch so you can control a single light fixture with two
different switches. Then we have an in-wall duplex receptacle
that would replace the standard receptacle. We also have
two plug-in modules, so you plug them into the wall and
then plug in your lamp or whatever and then you can control
it. We also have one module for outdoor use so you can hook
up your landscape lighting or your Christmas lights and
control them from inside the house. Our phase two products
[launching next year] expand on the functionality.
ZWW: Are these products interoperable with other
home control products?
King: Yes, the beauty of Z-Wave technology is that
all the products that carry the Z-Wave logo have to go through
compatibility and compliance testing with Zensys.
So if at the end of that process, they say that product
has been certified, it will work with any other Z-Wave certified
product. There is a small caveat to that, however. Lighting
control is one type of protocol, window blinds would be
the same protocol because its basic commands are on/off
or up/down or stop somewhere in the middle. Then you have
thermostats for heating and air conditioning and that's
a different protocol, so a basic Z-Wave entry level remote
like we're selling is for lighting control only, it does
not include thermostat. Our step up remote is an LCD model
that does also have thermostat control.
So technically the Z-Wave standard says that any Z-Wave
product will work with all other Z-Wave products but that
little caveat is still there because the technology has
to be built into it to work with the other devices. There
are a number of different protocols. It all works within
the same standard as far as the communication process. On
our dimmers if you have the deluxe remote you can access
advanced programming functions and very easily you can change
the rate at which the light dims, anywhere from 10 milliseconds
up to about 4 minutes, so we did include some advanced functionality.
ZWW: Are some Z-Wave products interoperable with
some x10 products?
King: There are some companies that have interface
devices that allow them to talk to each other. Also there's
HomeSeer software that lets you control both technologies.
And now with the Z/IP
program, the ability to control home lighting and HVAC
through a web browser is coming up very quickly. Being able
to control your home from your cell phone or a browser if
you're traveling makes it convenient to check in on the
status of your home. If you have IP-enabled cameras for
your security system, these can be interfaced with these
systems so you can check in on your pets or your kids. What's
unique is the interoperability. Our lighting controls will
work side by side with Leviton, Cooper, and Intermatic products
as well as Wayne Dalton's garage door openers and most of
the thermostats on the market. That's the unique part of
this. The Z/IP aspect extends the interoperability that
Zensys has already created.
Did you like this article? Let me know what you'd like
to read about. Send letters to the editor: catherine@zwaveworld.com.
