Swiss power sensing firm LEM has become the most recent company to adopt Zigbee for in-building wireless network products.

In this case, it is for a series of clamp-on power meters, dubbed Wi-LEM, which allow the energy use in areas of large buildings to be monitored - known as energy sub-metering.

Why Zigbee? “It is designed for volume and low-cost and it is robust in industrial and building environments,” said Tarek Boumegoura from LEM UK. “It can be configured in various topologies so you are sure to be able to establish a network, whatever the shape of the building.”

Zigbee is taking off in building automation where laying wires into existing buildings is expensive.

The compete story here.

The Climate Genie from Grape Networks consists of small battery powered nodes, often referred to as motes, to improve the yield and quality of crops. The Climate Genie wirelessly transmits temperature, humidity, and light information between each mote, with built-in radios, for monitoring anywhere in the World via the Internet. These motes/routers form a wireless mesh network with up to thousands of individual motes that are 10-300 meters apart. Each mote can sense a few simple things, such as temperature, moisture, light, or other physical qualities but as an aggregate gathers enormous sums of data about the quality and vitality of the grapes in the vineyard.

The complete story here.