See:
viewtopic.php?f=128&t=23350 and
viewtopic.php?f=132&t=23351spiv wrote:sure makes Zigbee look like the big winner instead of Z-Wave.
I don't see how Zigbee is in any way a winner. This new collaboration is all IP based, and Zigbee isn't. From an API perspective, we'll see where that lands, but it seems unlikely that it would be based on anything the Zigbee alliance put out. Zigbee's transport isn't listed at all (WiFi, Thread (rather than Zigbee) over 802.15.4, and BLE are specifically called out).
If anything, both Z-Wave and Zigbee will likely end up being the big losers, in that standard WiFi and IP-based APIs are the goal - which neither of those older technologies use. And in any event, Zigbee and Z-Wave are both basically controlled by Silicon Labs (as a heavy influencer in the former and the outright owner of the latter) - and their main interest is providing silicon. I'm sure they will be quite happy to continue to provide the hardware for WiFi, 802.15.4, and Bluetooth without having to deal with application level developers.
But, I say all this with the expectation that it's going to be
years before anything comes of it (if anything actually does). Maybe it's time, and I certainly welcome it. But these things have come and gone in the past...