The ZIPR is a Z/IP gateway that brings all Z-Wave devices on the market to the internet of things.

The Z-Wave Alliance has released a reference design of a small device, known as the ZIPR gateway, that is set to make networking of Z-Wave enabled devices easy and efficient.

“The ZIPR gateway was developed to provide a low-cost, low-complexity solution to exposing Z-Wave endpoints in an IP environment. This is important to custom installers in that it should promote the creation of a new class of low-cost ‘cloud’ gateways and enable new applications,” Z-Wave Alliance chairman Mark Walters says.

“It also makes it easy and inexpensive to connect two Z-Wave networks separated by a large distance or RF barrier together over a Category 5 or 6 link.”

The ZIPR gateway handles all of the communication between Z-Wave and Z-Wave for IP in a similar way that a home router handles the communication between a computer and the internet. It is designed to be plugged into a residential IP network, enabling applications residing on gateways, set-top boxes, TVs, mobile devices and cloud services to communicate with and control Z-Wave devices on the Z-Wave mesh network.

For connections outside the local IP network, the ZIPR supports secure TLS 1.1 TCP tunnelling.

The ZIPR also handles all basic Z-Wave protocol housekeeping, such as network management, Z-Wave Security and multi-channel device support. It is Z/IP-certified, ensuring interoperability with Z/IP-enabled applications from multiple vendors.

“The ZIPR gateway exposes the more than 25 million Z-Wave end-points already in the market, as well as all future Z-Wave end-points, to an IP addressable instance. This enables a whole new class of developers and applications to the Z-Wave space without requiring the developer to learn about or license the core Z-Wave technology,” Mark says.

The ZIPR is a ‘non-application-specific’ gateway. You simply plug it into an IP network using its Ethernet connection and add it to a Z-Wave network. Instantly, IP addresses will be assigned to every Z-Wave end-point or function. If the IP network is using IPv4 addressing, these will be IPv4 addresses; if IPv6, these will be IPv6 addresses. The user on the IP side can now fully communicate with the Z-Wave network using user datagram protocol (UDP) messages. This is a full-function, bi-directional bridge.

“Z-Wave is most common in home control products such as door locks, thermostats, lighting controls and the like. You can also find it in several AV control products where it acts as the bridging technology between the AV or lighting control system (usually still IR) and the home control products,” Mark says.

Installers need a single ZIPR for each logical Z-Wave network. A logical Z-Wave network can have 231 nodes; each of which may have multiple end-points. And any Z-Wave compliant, certified device can communicate with a ZIP gateway; nothing additional is required.

“We expect to see commercial end products based on the ZIPR technology towards the end of Q2,” Mark says.

“The gateway developer’s kits have been shipping for three months now but there is no public announcement of the first company to release these exciting new products yet.”