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| EMagazine Volume 4 Issue 5 October 1999 |
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Toys Interview - October99 - [HTI Home Page] |
HomeTech Hot Products Continuously Updated [Click Message To Learn More] |
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PlugLab which was originally set up to test and certify compliance of products based on the CEBus standard for powerline and RF media, has been extended to handle Home Plug & Play products. More importantly, in 1999, it has added the capability to test products based on other home networking standards in order to act as a unified test facility for the home networking industry. |
QUESTION 1: There have been some recent changes at CIC. Can you bring us up to date on what's happening?
The CAL Interoperability Council [CIC], a non-profit organization that facilitates the growth of home networking by providing the resources to ensure interoperability between multiple networking protocols, announced in May 1999 that its Board has decided to make a change in its leadership to ensure that the organization can meet its objectives of helping the home networking industry achieve its goals of success in the marketplace and providing effective resources for interoperability amongst various networking technologies entering the market. CIC has also signed an agreement to provide testing for one of the leading home networking standards - the HomePNA for phoneline-based networking.
Mike Coffey, who has led the organization from its inception is stepping down to pursue other personal interests. Industry veteran, P. S. Vishwanath [Vish] has been selected by the CIC Board to serve as the Council's Interim Executive Director. Currently, the home networking arena is undergoing major changes with several new networking technologies and companies entering this area. According to Evan Price, chairman of the Board of Directors of CIC, CIC's main challenges are to ensure interoperability as these new products coming into the market, while educating consumers about the benefits of home networking.
Vishwanath has been involved in this arena for over 10 years and has extensive experience working with multiple companies and organizations to develop products for emerging technology areas. According the Board of the CIC, his mandate is to position CIC and the PlugLab to act as effective catalysts for the growth of the home networking industry.
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CIC was originally set up in 1994 by the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association, a sector of the Electronic Industry Alliance [EIA] and focused exclusively on promotion and use of the CEBus, an open home automation standard developed under EIA's sponsorship. It has been applied to products based on power line and RF media for residential, commercial and utility control applications. As other home networking technologies entered the market in recent years, the need for a common language to ensure interoperability became evident.
In response to this industry need, CIC developed the Common Application Language [CAL] and the Home Plug & Play interoperability guidelines as a potential solution to solve the problem of interoperability. Home Plug & Play also provides uniform interoperability labeling for all home networking products. The CAL and the Home Plug & Play guidelines were developed with the support of several leading industry companies involved in the areas of home automation, home networking, telecom and energy utility applications.
In addition, the CIC has established a test facility in Indianapolis [Indiana] campus of Indiana University-Purdue University called PlugLab to ensure conformance of products to various protocol specifications. PlugLab which was originally set up to test and certify compliance of products based on the CEBus standard for powerline and RF media, has been extended to handle Home Plug & Play products. More importantly, in 1999, it has added the capability to test products based on other home networking standards in order to act as a unified test facility for the home networking industry.
QUESTION 3: Is the CIC involved in the Home Networking Industry that has recently become a hot technology product development market.
The CIC views much of its work now in driving the home networking market forward by focusing on three core areas:
- Promoting the development of a wide variety of home networking and home systems products
- Providing a way for companies to test their products for compliance and interoperability, not only with the CEBus standard, Home Plug & Play, but with other home networking technologies as they are developed and released into the marketplace
- Working with all of the industry groups to develop a uniform product labeling scheme to ensure that the consumers understand exactly what they will get when they buy any of the home networking products.
What CIC plans to do is to shift the focus of the industry companies to get products out that meet customer's networking needs. The customer does not buy a technology, he or she buys a solution to satisfy their networking needs effectively and at a price that is affordable. Vishwanath has indicated that CIC will be looking to set up strategic partnerships with the various home networking organizations and companies. A primary focus will be to ensure that CIC's PlugLab can test products based on any of the home networking technology.
Along with that CIC plans to work with these other organizations to develop a common labeling scheme so that the customer will know which products will work with which other products with the ultimate goal being to ensure that certified products from different vendors will be able to be used in a give home without causing network problems or crashes.
CIC demonstrated that it can deliver on its promise of being the interoperability organization for the home networking industry by setting up an agreement with the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance [HomePNA] to have its PlugLab act as the official testing facility for HomePNA-approved products. CIC PlugLab is charged with conducting an extensive certification program to ensure member companies' home phoneline networking products meet HomePNA's exacting interoperability and performance standards and merit the HomePNA logo, signifying its seal of approval.
CIC PlugLab is currently busy testing for compliance with HomePNA's initial technical specification products from several manufacturers. For additional information on HomePNA and its member companies, visit their Web site [ www.homepna.org ].
Finally, we are in serious discussions with many of the emerging home networking technology development groups to work with them to assist them in the product compliance testing and labeling efforts. Vishwanath strongly urges any interested group to contact him for further discussions in this area.
QUESTION 4: Can you give us a quick rundown of what products are available now from CIC members and who / where they are available from?
The following products are available from CIC members and can be purchased directly from the manufacturer or through their distribution channel.
Cutler-Hammer
- Advanced Power Center - Load center panel with electronic, remotely controllable circuit breakers, current sensors and interface to home control systems
- Energy Control Center - Graphical user interface to the APC for energy management and home control
Domosys Corporation
- DomoMeter - Plug-in plc module for monitoring power consumption and capable of 2-way plc communications
- Phase Coupler- an in-box circuit that couples CEBus signals across electrical phases
- AC Power Adapter - A plug-in power supply for CEBus and Home Plug & Play compliant products.
- DomoNet - A handheld module designed to assist integrators during product installation and network qualification.
- CECom - stand-alone plc modem
- CEWay PL-One - A power line transceiver IC that implements the CEBus Physical Layer and embeds an 8052 microcontroller core.It is an integrated low cost solution that is ideal for simple products such as switches and actuators.
- CEWay PL-III - A power line transceiver IC that implements the CEBus Physical and Data Link Layers. It is best suited for large applications requiring more processing power.
- DomoSIP - A Single In-Line Package (SIP) combining a CEWay PL-III transceiver with filtration and amplification circuitry. DomoSIP sharply reduces the time to build an interface to the power line. Available in 120 VAC and 240 VAC versions.
- Interface SIP - A Single In-Line Package (SIP) with filtration and amplification circuitry only. It is combined with a PL-One transceiver to quickly create complete nodes. Available in 120 VAC and 240 VAC versions.
Tools:
- CEBox - A software tool that generates fully compliant CEBus and Home Plug & Play protocol stack. The value of CEBox comes from reducing both the time to market and the risks associated with product development. Libraries available for CEWay PL-One, 8051 and 68HC11 microcontrollers.
- CEBoard - A versatile prototyping board designed to assist developers in rapidly validating early product designs. Available for CEWay PL-One, 8051, and 68HC11 microcontrollers.
- CETester - A software tool for testing the communication features of a product against established test scenarios and monitoring traffic over the power line. A must-have tool to accelerate product development. Runs on any PC in conjunction with a CECom modem.
Kits:
- HeadStart Suite - The most affordable and complete tool package available. This tool suite includes the CEBox software system, the CEBoard prototyping platform, the CETester qualifying tool and the CECom power line modem. Developers need no more.
- DomoMeter Evaluation Kit - A complete kit for evaluation of the powerful capabilities of the DomoMeter. Contains the DomoMeter module, the DomoMeter PC Software and the CECom power line modem.
Emerald Gateway International
- Meter Interface Unit - 60 Hz, 50 Hz: Takes the pulse from an electronic meter, saves and massages it, and makes it available in CEBus
- Communications and Control Unit - 60 Hz, 50 Hz: Built-in modem, handles load control algorithms, handles information streams to other devices
- Load Control Unit - Dec 1, 1999 - 60 Hz, 50 Hz: In development. Able to control 2 household loads through CEBus
- CEBus device adapter: Provides 12 V DC and CEBus signal to electronic device. With different plug configurations, can be used anywhere in the world.
- In-House Display: 8 row x 32 column LCD display. Uses CEBus adapter for power and CEBus communications
- Neighbourhood Data Collector - Nov 1, 1999 - 60 Hz, 50 Hz: In development. Built-in modem. Handles AMR reporting and information streams for multiple homes.
- CECard: Can take in serial I/O, RS232, RS485 and proprietary DSC security panel information and convert it to CEBus. Works intimately with DSC panels to increase functionality of security systems. Uses CEBus adapter for power and CEBus communications.
- CEBus light switches and modules - Oct 1, 1999: Works with CECard and In-House Display to achieve lighting control and simple home automation.
- CEBus installation device - Oct 1, 1999: Allows for simultaneous CEBus monitoring and CEBus command and control. Includes programmable macros to simply installation routines. Uses CEBus adapter for power and CEBus communications.
Intellon Corporation
- PLC chips - SSC P200,& P300 - network interface IC
- SSAP111 - powerline media interface IC
- RF SSC R400 - RF network interface IC
- RF SSC RFCEDW - RF transceiver IC
- Evaluation/Development kits for the above chips
Smart Corporation
- Smart Switches - for lighting and turning on/off electrical loads
- 30 Amp Load Controller
- Bridge - programmable multiple I/O controller
- Manager Plus - home network system manager
- Security Module - general purpose interface to security systems
- HomeTool Pro - home network configuration tool
QUESTION 5: Are there major developments expected in the next 12 months from CIC and it's members? Please elaborate.
CIC, in its work with industry companies and its own membership, has developed Home Plug & Play specification [version 1.0] which is widely available from its Web site. In its continuing efforts to improve this specification and make it more valuable to the industry, CIC has been working on version 2.0 of this specification.
The Home Plug & Play model used in the Home Plug & Play specification version 1.0 has proven to be able to provide the desired interoperability and can now be found in some commercial products interoperating together as demonstrated on the Domosys CEBus wall. Nevertheless, some context template inconsistencies as well as some model limitations were discovered, which led to revisiting the Home Plug & Play model. The Home Plug & Play model has been modified in version 2.0 to overcome these shortfalls. Within this same effort, the model was significantly simplified as well as standardized.
The initial draft will be available in the fourth quarter of 1999. There will then be a one-month prototyping period, followed by a PlugFest. After the PlugFest, there will be another month of document editing to rectify any lab-discovered problems. There will then be one month of document ballot followed by another month of comment resolution. Finally, we will have a public Home Plug & Play specification version 2.0 in early second quarter of 2000.
According to CIC's Vishwanath, the organization has launched serious discussions with a number of other home networking organizations to provide similar testing services. CIC's primary strategy is going to be to focus the industry's attention on making home networking products meet the requirements to become widely accepted consumer products. The first step is to take the discussion away from a debate of standards to one of interoperability and easy to understand product labeling to avoid consumer confusion.
In the next 12 months, CIC expects to announce working relationships with number of home networking groups, both in the U.S. and abroad, to provide compliance testing for their standards at CIC's PlugLab. CIC also expects to forge strategic relationships with these groups to launch actions that will enable the rapid growth of this industry and promotes strong consumer awareness of home networking and home control products.
QUESTION 6: What do you recommend as a course of action for someone starting a new home project and wanting to include the latest automation technologies.
The first thing is to get themselves educated on what is available and the respective strengths of each of the available systems in the market. They can do that by visiting our Web site and the sites of other home networking groups. Industry standards associations, such as CEMA/EIA, also have informative Web sites that they can visit to get additional information.
Once, they have a clear idea of what is available and what they want, then they would be well-positioned to sit down with the builder/installer to get a system that is right for them.
QUESTION 7: Gazing into your crystal ball ... where do you see the industry going over the next few years?
If I were really good at this crystal gazing business, then I would be busy running my island kingdom. Still, as a risk-loving person who is living on the leading edge of the technology, I feel comfortable in saying that all of the factors are in alignment - finally - for the home networking market to take off.
The popularity of the Internet, active efforts to develop home networks using powerline, phoneline and wireless, and the involvement of several leading companies in this arena will ensure that the consumers have several viable choices to meet their needs. Besides, organizations like CIC, are working diligently to provide the assistance to these industry companies to keep the industry moving forward.
