Here’s the tech that could turn millions of Zigbee light bulbs into motion sensors with a single update

Lights that turn on when you enter a room and turn off when you leave are one of the most desirable smart home features. But you need to purchase additional hardware, such as motion sensors, to make this «magic» happen. A new environmental sensing technology called Sensitize You could facilitate this by turning light bulbs into motion sensors. And it may very soon land on a Philips Hue bridge near you.

Raising awareness is a wireless network detection (WNS) technology developed by ivani which can turn mains-powered Zigbee devices into motion sensors to control your lights with just a firmware update, no additional hardware required. The best part is that it can work on devices already found in most homes. “There are already tens of millions of devices with basic firmware; we’re just working on the finishing touches to brighten the entire experience,” says Ivani co-founder Justin McKinney. The edge.

An obvious use case for this is a Zigbee-based smart lighting system like Philips Hue. There has been speculation that Hue is working on a Zigbee sensing technology since its sister company Wiz introduced a similar technology called SpaceSense in 2022, which uses WNS over Wi-Fi. The well-informed hueblog.com reports that Zigbee wireless network detection is the technology Hue will likely use. The edge He contacted Signify, which owns Hue, but has not yet heard back.

McKinney did not say which companies are using Ivani’s Sensify, which has been in development since 2016, but did share that the company is working «with some big household names poised to deploy the technology very soon.» It also said it is the only company that offers this capability over Zigbee networks.

Ivani is a member of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), which runs the Zigbee protocol, but Sensify is a proprietary solution that leverages the Zigbee network. Despite reports that this sensing technology will come to all Zigbee devices, the CSA confirmed The edge that this is not a new feature within Zigbee itself.

WNS works by detecting disturbances in radio frequencies and can also be applied to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Thread technologies. McKinney says Sensify requires three or more devices placed around a sensing area to detect motion and occupancy in the space. The technology also allows for precise detection zones based on the location of the devices. «The devices send messages to each other, analyze diagnostic information from the underlying network, and process it to provide occupancy detection decisions,» says McKinney.

In terms of performance, McKinney says Sensify is «equivalent or superior» to passive infrared (PIR) detection technology, which is traditionally used for motion detection. It also does not require line of sight, as the PIR does. However, it is not as accurate as technologies such as mmWave detection, which can determine if someone is in a room using a movement as slight as breathing. «The lights are likely to go out if you’re still, even if you’re in space,» he says.

The good news is that Sensify can run on Zigbee networks with a variety of chipsets working together, meaning it can be deployed as a software upgrade to existing systems. McKinney also confirmed that Sensify runs locally on its Zigbee network, that there is no Sensify cloud, and that only the manufacturer implementing the technology can access the sensing data.

This video, published by CSA, illustrates how Ivani’s wireless network discovery works over a Zigbee network.

Motion detection in the smart home has several use cases, from lighting control and security to energy management and senior care. In this case, two big advantages of WNS are cost and scale. You don’t need to purchase additional hardware to get this capability, and many homes already have devices that can use it.

Ivani is currently the only company with a Zigbee solution, but there are WNS solutions that use Wi-Fi. wireless origin and its associated company, Nami, were the first to develop Wi-Fi sensing and are leading Matter’s efforts to bring ambient RF sensing technologies to the smart home standard.

Origin’s technology powered Linksys Aware, a feature the router company launched in 2019 that turned its routers into motion sensors, and last year, Threshold launched a smart plug that uses Origin’s Wi-Fi detection to allow Caregivers monitor a loved one’s activity remotely.

In 2021, I tried Hexagonal homea proof-of-concept security system from Origin that used Wi-Fi detection instead of motion sensors. But false positives made it virtually unusable. I also tried Wiz’s Wi-Fi-based SpaceSense when it was first released. It was more reliable but still quite inconsistent. However, according to McKinney, advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence have brought significant improvements to WNS technology.

He says Ivani’s Sensify technology is ready to be deployed on Zigbee and that they are just waiting for their partners to fine-tune the best way to «introduce the feature within their product lines.» Expect them to update existing products in the coming months. «We have the pleasure of experiencing our partners’ products and their beta testing in our homes, and it truly is the promise of what home automation was supposed to be about.»

Over the years there have been many promises around home automation and very few have been fulfilled. But the idea of, say, every Philips Hue bulb in your home becoming a motion sensor at night, making it simpler to automatically control your lights without putting white plastic sensors everywhere, is pretty exciting.