EnergyBoom Talks to CEO About Emerging Smart Home Technology

Ever hear of ZigBee? You will. This “next wireless wave” will create a new generation of home automation possibilities that will save energy, talk to the smart grid, and potentially save 4.5 billion batteries per year.

Your TV remote control uses infrared red (IR) technology that dates back to the 1970’s. These antiquated one-way IR controls require line of sight, have a short range, and need lots of power. Ever wonder how many batteries from TV remote controls are thrown out around the world every year? About 5 billion.

This week I talked to Cees Links, founder and CEO of data communication company GreenPeak Technologies, and he wants to change that.

His company is developing ultra-low power Zigbee chips and proprietary software that will allow remotes and sensors so energy efficient they might not need batteries at all.

And Mr. Link believes batteries remain the biggest obstacle between your house, and the famously automated abode of George Jetson.

“Why don’t sensor control networks exist to manage energy consumption in my house, in the same way we have cell phone and wireless Internet?” asks Links. “Because if you have 50 sensors, you need 50 batteries.”

By linking ultra-low power devices with the emerging possibility of energy harvesting, these new remotes can be powered using only the energy of your finger pushing a button. If they need a battery at all, it will last the lifetime of the product.

These new generation remotes will do much more than change your channels. They will be programmable to communicate with a host of new household applications, sending discrete packets of radio information to control your lights, thermostat, door locks, alarms and appliances.

There is also enormous potential to marry this new technology with the smart grid to achieve huge energy savings. Utilities could use household remote networks to manage your appliances remotely to reduce peak loads, or turn them off when not in use.

According to Links: “This technology allows utility companies to do peak shaving and eliminate standby power. We are talking about significant, significant amounts of energy now wasted - not one or two percent of energy consumption but tens or twenties of percent energy consumption. If utility companies can remotely switch off your freezer for ten minutes while they slowly ramp up extra power, they can save tremendous amounts of energy, instead of immediately having to supply that extra current.”

And why would you want your utility company to be able to switch off your freezer? Since peak shaving might save them the expense of building a new power plant, they would offer reduced rates to those customers pitching in to reduce peak loads or eliminate phantom energy use.

Of course you need cheap, easily implemented household controls in your house so the utility can control your appliances. That is where these new low-power wireless networks come in.

So how far could this go? Links believes the sky’s the limit. Much like the ubiquitous iPhone, GreenPeak hopes that independent developers will come up with a host of new applications no one has yet thought of for their ultra-low power platform.

“We are working with many companies in remote controls, lighting, switching, electronic shelf labeling. Wherever we go, our goal is to eliminate batteries. We are developing technology that is extremely sensitive about available energy, uses extremely low currents and extremely short transmission times.”

While the ZigBee standard is already considerably more energy efficient that old IR controllers, the chips GreenPeak has developed are specifically designed to minimize energy use to about one tenth what is available now. Links estimates this could save 4.5 billion batteries worldwide annually from TV remote controls alone.

While Green Peak does not control the intellectual property on ZigBee or the related new standard RF4CE, they do own the IP for their extremely low energy data management system, and many industry players seem interested.

So how big is the potential market?

“To put it in perspective, the number of remote controls shipped every years is about 500 million. The number of light switches and dimmers is about 400 million. Controls for heating, ventilation and air conditioning are about 100 million,” said Links.

“You’ve probably heard of the ‘internet of things’ and that in the future there will be more machines on the Internet than people. We think the ZigBee RF4CE standards will make that happen.”

So when can consumers expect to see the long awaited automated house?

“We think that if things are standardized and cost effective it will become mainstream very quickly. I expect that in two years, remote controls for televisions will be ZigBee RF4CE and after that, more and more applications will be developed because everyone will have a new remote control in their house.”

Links was a major player in 1990’s in the development of WiFi technology and his new company seems poised to make another big splash. GreenPeak currently employs about 40 people and is in discussions with several industry partners to bring this promising idea to market, with announcements likely this fall.

They are funded by a variety of venture capital sources and have not issued an IPO, so there are no investment opportunities for the likes of you or me. However, this no-battery-future could fundamentally change the way we live, and the way we use energy.