IoT alliance Samsung and ARM to partner with ZigBee Alliance

The Thread Group, which includes Samsung, ARM and Nest, will collaborate with the ZigBee Alliance. Thread is an IP-based protocol for internet-of-things applications. The collaboration with the ZigBee group is intended to prevent fragmentation in the home automation market.

The collaboration should ensure that the ZigBee Cluster Library, in which the control commands for zigbee-compatible home automation and iot applications are described, can be used over the Thread protocol. With this, the initiators of the Thread protocol hope to increase support for broadly supported control protocols for Internet-of-things applications.

The zigbee protocol is used for various home automation applications, such as controlling ‘smart’ lighting. Thread, in turn, builds on the 802.15.4 protocol and adds support for 6LoWPAN, which controls ipv6 handling for resource-efficient network devices. Encryption is also included in the standard. A timeline for the integration of the two protocols is not yet given.