Silicon Labs and the Z-Wave Alliance has announced plans to open the Z-Wave specification as a ratified, multi-source wireless standard available to all silicon and stack vendors for development.

With this change, semiconductor and software suppliers will be able to join the Z-Wave ecosystem, contribute to future advancements of the leading smart home standard and develop and supply sub-GHz Z-Wave radio devices and software stacks.

Expected in the second half of the 2020, the opened Z-Wave specification will include the ITU.G9959 PHY/MAC radio specification, the application layer, the network layer and the host-device communication protocol.

Alliance members and smart home customers will benefit from the hallmark features of Z-Wave including the interoperability, backwards compatibility, the S2 security format, easy installation with SmartStart, low-power functionality with a 10-year battery life and long-range with sub-GHz mesh.

“As a standards organization, the Z-Wave Alliance will help solve the interoperability challenges hindering the adoption of smart home devices,” Z-Wave Alliance executive director Mitch Klein says.

“Members will work together on a single sub-GHZ connectivity solution that guarantees the forward-and-backward compatibility, interoperability, security and robustness needed to grow the IoT. The Z-Wave Alliance will collectively advance a fully realised smart home standard.”

Silicon Labs is committed to IoT standardisation. By expanding access to Z-Wave as a standard supported by multiple vendors, the smart home ecosystem will benefit both from broader technology support as well as accelerated market adoption.

“Silicon Labs has worked to create positive alignment across the industry with the goal of advancing both security and compatibility in smart home devices,” Silicon Labs vice president and general manager Jake Alamat says.

“Future success for the smart home industry relies on ecosystems getting closer, not farther apart. The smart home market opportunity is tremendous, and we want to help drive its success. When the ecosystems work together toward a common goal, the entire industry including manufacturers, developers, retailers and consumers benefit from this open collaboration.”