Leviton Manufacturing
Home Controls Manufacturer Uses .NET Micro Framework to Create Product Quickly
Situation
Leviton Manufacturing dates back to the dawn of the electrical era in 1906. Originally engaged in the fabrication of mantle tips for gas lighting, the company quickly saw the potential in the newly harnessed source of energy and converted to production of an electrical pull-chain lampholder. Today, Leviton offers more than 20,000 products and is a leader in the electrical industry, serving the industrial, commercial, OEM, and residential markets.
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Leviton saw in the advent of the Z-Wave technology standard a means of offering its customers advanced, next-generation home automation that provides greater flexibility and convenience while moving beyond the limitations inherent in older, wire-based household power-line systems.
A New Protocol Changes the Game
Z-Wave, which was codified through an industry alliance in 2005, is a wireless radio frequency (RF)-based communications standard that makes remote control effective and practical for homes of any size. The protocol, which is embedded in a microprocessor chip and built into a module or device along with memory – flash memory, RAM, or both – transforms a stand-alone appliance into an intelligent networked device that can be controlled and monitored wirelessly. Z-Wave delivers high-quality networking at a fraction of the cost of other similar technologies by focusing on narrow bandwidth applications and negating the need for costly hardware by employing innovative software solutions.
The Z-Wave standard offers a combination of technical and practical advantages that render it superior to conventional home control systems. The benefits include a wide signal range, making remote-control functionality possible for even the largest homes; simple integration that makes it easy to expand the network; low power consumption for deployment in battery-operated devices; two-way communication for remote confirmation of device or systems status; and low cost, making full home automation more affordable than ever before. Moreover, because Z-Wave operates on a narrow band of radio frequencies that aren't affected by other wireless devices such as the very popular 2.4 and 5.8 Gigahertz cordless phones and increasingly prevalent home Wi-Fi networks (a, b, g and n standards), there is no interference like that typically encountered with power-line solutions such as UPB.
Historically, home control systems cost tens of thousands of dollars. Leviton saw an opportunity for innovation in the home automation industry through the cost efficiencies created by Z-Wave devices. Because it's wireless, Z-Wave technology can be installed in a new home that's under construction just as easily as it can be retrofitted to an existing home. However, even with all the lights and appliances in a home enabled on the new standard at substantially lower costs, there is still the need for a central controller, connecting the home to the Internet for remote access. Such controllers have been, until now, among the most expensive components of a home automation system.
Solution
Looking for a solution path to reach the goal of innovation in home automation on the Z-Wave standard, Leviton found that the Microsoft .NET Micro Framework provided the development environment best suited for its product development and integration needs. Lightweight embedded control technologies are central to the .NET Micro Framework because it combines the reliability and efficiency of .NET with the productivity of Microsoft Visual Studio®. The .NET Micro Framework extends the power and richness of .NET development into the realm of the smallest of devices, where there are typically constraints on cost, memory, processor capabilities, or battery power.
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Leviton judged the .NET Micro Framework as being able to offer several advantages over other platforms. These advantages include reduced hardware and licensing costs, direct hardware access at the managed code layer, and the simplicity and high up-time of the platform. "It just seemed like a better fit for a serious embedded device and enabled a lower, mass-market, end-user price," says Chris Walker, President and Chief Technical Officer of ControlThink, Leviton's software partner. ControlThink was tasked with writing the required applications and providing additional, enhanced functionality based on its own IP.
According to Walker, Leviton would have incurred higher development costs if it used proprietary tool chains rather than the .NET Micro Framework. He also stated that "other development tools are not nearly as refined or efficient as the Microsoft tools." In addition, he saw the framework's ability to run on inexpensive processors as a significant additional benefit.
A New Product Is Developed – Fast
Leviton worked with Microsoft, which provided the .NET Micro Framework, as well as with its hardware and software partners to develop the Vizia RF Foyer, the industry's first Z-Wave-compliant Ethernet gateway. The Vizia RF Foyer connects to an Internet-linked PC or laptop through the computer's Ethernet port and transmits signals to a Z-Wave home control network. Peer-to-peer mesh networks based on the .NET Micro Framework, the Vizia RF Foyer, and the Z-Wave protocol overcome the performance issues and high cost of earlier generations of wireless home control systems.
Each Vizia RF Foyer module is equipped with a two-way radio chip that it uses to communicate with modules, called nodes, in the network. Z-Wave command signals travel from node to node along the network to their final destination. If any form of interference blocks the signal along the way (for example, a wall or a large appliance such as a refrigerator), the signal is automatically rerouted through other nodes until it reaches its destination. The "self-healing" feature of the Z-Wave mesh network lends it unparalleled reliability.
An embedded application, such as the one in the Vizia RF Foyer, customarily takes approximately one year to develop. However, with the .NET Micro Framework, Leviton's software partner ControlThink was able to produce a working proof of concept in three days and, porting its existing .Net code base, completed the final application within three months.
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Easy Integration of Hardware and Software
Leviton's hardware partner, Digi International, produced the processor for the Vizia RF Foyer. It also found the .NET Micro Framework hospitable to its work on the project. The Digi Ethernet module, with plug-and-play functionality and comprehensive development tools for custom applications, further simplified the design and manufacture of the Vizia RF Foyer. "What we brought to the project and the .NET Micro Framework really came together with the ControlThink application," says John Leier, Product Manager for Embedded Solutions for Digi. "Everything worked well and easily scaled up to the application for Leviton's new product. This project shows how you can really reduce the amount of time it takes to get your product to market with the .NET Micro Framework."
"Because the .NET Micro Framework is designed to be implemented with hardware solutions, it's an ideal system for us to use in the Vizia RF Foyer," says Grant Sullivan, Product Marketing Manager, Automation Products for Residential Technologies for Leviton. "This has been a little different kind of process for us. Given that Leviton is a manufacturing company, we tend to like to build our own products. But Z-Wave is still a new technology and we felt there was an opportunity to work with Microsoft and our partners to create a better home automation system. Both the process of collaborating to develop this product and the response we're getting to it have been very positive."
Benefits
The Vizia RF Foyer, which will reach the market in the third quarter of 2007, allows connectivity to a home automation system locally and remotely. It makes possible use of a PDA, smart phone or either home-based or office PC to command and control dimmers, switches and other Z-Wave-enabled appliances.
"This product speeds up the home automation system in comparison to power-line wire-based systems," says Walker. "You plug the Vizia RF Foyer into the wall and connect it into your router. Now your smart home is on the Internet and can be controlled both remotely via our secure ThinkConnect service and also from computers in the house that are on the network. This small, inexpensive device is reliable, has intelligence and makes everything run better – it's basically a low-cost, smart server for the home."
Homeowners can conserve energy during the day by turning on house lights and air conditioning using their cell phone as they approach their home in the evening; dim the lights as they watch a movie in their home theater; run a macro so that an hour after the kitchen lights are turned off, the exhaust fan over the stove automatically switches off; or signal their home to go into a preprogrammed "vacation mode," with lights going on and off in different parts of the house at various times, to make it look like its being lived in for increased security.
"The big advantage here is that I can control my home when I'm not there," says Walker. "I can be home when I'm not."
Roadmap for Future Innovation
The primary focus for the launch of the Vizia RF Foyer is lighting and appliance command and control, but it will eventually integrate with window shades, thermostats, door locks, security systems and touch screens that communicate on the Z-Wave standard.
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Another key improvement expected in future product releases is increased speed across the network.
"There's real benefit to Leviton from all that .NET Micro Framework does today. But I'm confident that the Z-Wave technology and the Vizia RF Foyer product line will continue to expand.
Ian Hendler, Director of Automation Products for Residential Technologies, Leviton Manufacturing
Faster, Better, and More Economical
Speed is a central theme of the Vizia RF Foyer story. "We've shown that you can reduce the time it takes to get your product to market with the .NET Micro Framework," says Leier. "That really changes the game for embedded device designers and developers. Now they can very quickly and very easily add wired and wireless networking to their products."
"We want to go to the mass market," says Hendler, "so the .NET Micro Framework was the most cost-effective platform for us to adopt. It also delivers the ability to innovate on and is easy to find developers to program on – and our customers are already comfortable working in the .NET world. The price point is excellent and the value proposition in terms of features and flexibility is great. And based on our testing, it's very reliable."
"There's real benefit to Leviton, our customers, and to consumers from all that .NET Micro Framework does today. But I'm very confident that the Z-Wave technology and the Vizia RF Foyer product line will continue to develop and expand in terms of its capabilities and functionality by using the .NET Micro Framework."
"I see this as a platform for growth for Leviton, beyond just this one product. There are other applications we can use it in; this is a residential technology, but there are applications it can perhaps be used for in light commercial or small business. So we see .NET Micro Framework as a very good platform to invest in, because you get a good ROI immediately and you have good potential for future ROI."
The .NET Micro Framework grew out of the Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) initiative at Microsoft. This framework is a natural extension of Microsoft offerings for creating embedded systems and provides an easy-to-use solution for this type of development.
Though it is used on very small devices, the.NET Micro Framework provides a managed code environment that brings a high degree of efficiency and reliability to the realm of embedded software
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www.msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/netmf
For More Information
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For more information about Leviton Manufacturing products and services, call (718) 229-4040 or visit the Web site at:
http://www.leviton.com/
For more information about ControlThink products and services, call (888) 90THINK or visit the Web site at:
http://www.controlthink.com/
For more information about Digi International products and services, call (877) 912-3444 or visit the Web site at:
http://www.digi.com/
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