The Z-Wave Alliance has announced its completion as a solely independent non-profit organisation and seven founding members under its new standards development organisation (SDO) structure: Alarm.com, Assa Abloy, Leedarson, Ring, Silicon Labs, StratIS and Qolsys.

Under the SDO, Z-Wave Alliance members will be given new opportunities to participate, with a new membership level and structure as well as workgroups and committees.

The new working groups will feature technical working groups looking at the physical layer, networking layer to support the Z-Wave specification and application layer. On top of that, working groups will work on certification, security and marketing.

Committees will be established to manage operational, as well as technical and marketing needs.

This new membership and organisational structure aims to be member-driven to support forward momentum, project development, technology development and changes and other pieces critical to the growth of Z-Wave in the market.

“For over 15 years, the Z-Wave Alliance has stood as a leader in the smart home and IoT industry, with diverse membership comprised of manufacturers, integrators and others all supporting Z-Wave’s growth in the market,” Z-Wave Alliance executive director Mitchell Klein says.

“Establishing our founding members, several of which have been with us as board members for many years, is a critical step forward in setting a new course for the Alliance to follow in 2020 and beyond. By making these changes to the Z-Wave Alliance’s role and to the Z-Wave Specification, our goal is to facilitate open IoT deployment and engage new kinds of companies into Z-Wave development to bolster the ecosystem, including silicon vendors and software developers, to bring Z-Wave to more devices and more industries.”

Alarm.com chief product officer Dan Kerzner says that it has used Z-Wave for more than a decade to help expand its platforms, helping people control and manage and ever-growing range of devices that work together: “Along with the other founding members, we remain committed to shaping this evolving and impactful technology.”

Ring Solutions president Mike Harris adds: “We’re excited about the future of Z-Wave and the new direction the organization is taking. Shifting to an independent group will allow us to have direct access to moulding the future of Z-Wave, along with other industry leaders, to continue to bring simple, secure smart home solutions to everyone.”