PHOTO COURTESY OF Z-WAVE ALLIANCE

The Z-Wave Alliance, a consortium of more than 300 leading manufacturers and service providers worldwide dedicated to interoperable wireless control products based on the Z-Wave open standard, held its annual Fall Summit “The Future Powered by Z-Wave,” November 4-6, 2014 at the Hilton Carlsbad Oceanfront Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.

This year's summit, entitled “The Future Powered by Z-Wave,” brought together technical and marketing representatives from many of the Z-Wave Alliance member companies to celebrate the growth of Z-Wave technology; recognize the alliance's 10 years of operation; collaborate with other alliance members on cutting-edge marketing and product development strategies; demonstrate new products and services to attending media; and hear a keynote presentation on the state of the smart home market from analyst firm Frost & Sullivan.

The Summit, hosted by alliance board member Linear LLC, began with an interactive tour of the Linear Carlsbad facility for the attending press, followed by a keynote presentation delivered by Roberta Gamble, a partner at Frost & Sullivan and vice president for the firm's Energy and Environment/Building Technologies team.  Alliance member achievement awards followed the presentation.

Day two of the event featured alliance plenary sessions along with breakout tracks for the alliance’s technical and marketing working groups. The technical track included sessions on best practice applications of the Z-Wave technology, through reviews of the newest additions to the standard as well as technical discussions around pending additions to the standard.  The track was also highlighted by a session on best practice antenna design from RF expert David Zima of RF Laboratories. 

The marketing working group meeting included sessions on branding, point-of-sale presentation, ecosystem building, general market conditions and worldwide smart-home marketing trends.  It also featured a presentation from social media expert Matt Walker of the Brim Agency on how to measure the effectiveness of social media campaigns, a large part of the most Alliance members’ overall marketing efforts.

The event also included a meeting of the alliance’s board of directors, along with social events that allowed attendees to continue networking in a relaxed, informal atmosphere.

“Without question, Z-Wave is the predominant technology in the smart home market,” said Mark Walters, chairman of the Z-Wave Alliance.  “Our product-level interoperability, backwards compatibility, dominance in the security industry and soon in the telecommunications provider segment, along with new capabilities such as our IP technology, are strong indications that Z-Wave's future is extremely bright. 

It is the collaboration among our Alliance members at events like this Summit and in the marketplace that make Z-Wave the leading technology it is.”  

Duane Paulson, senior vice president of product and market development for Linear emphasized that the progress made during this year’s event highlights the promising future and tremendous growth potential of Z-Wave technology. “Linear is the world’s largest manufacturer of Z-Wave-enabled products, and we are committed to developing innovative and practical solutions for the ever-expanding base of Z-Wave customers,” Paulson said.

For more information about the Z-Wave Alliance, visit www.z-wavealliance.org.