UG392: Using Silicon Labs Green Power

with Zigbee EmberZNet PRO

This application note introduces the Silicon Labs Green Power

components within the Zigbee EmberZNet PRO stack and ex-

plains how to enable a network for Green Power. This document

assumes readers are familiar with the basic Green Power con-

cepts discussed in UG103.15: Silicon Labs Green Power Funda-

mentals.

KEY POINTS

• Introduces Green Power.

• Describes a basic Green Power network.

• Explains Green Power commissioning and

operational model.

• Describes the Silicon Labs Green Power

devices, their plugins, and callbacks.

1. Introduction to Green Power

Zigbee

Green Power (ZGP) is included in the Zigbee 3.0 specification (Z3) (Zigbee Alliance, Zigbee 3.0 specification). It is an end-to-

end open standard that allows ultra-low power devices called Green Power Devices (GPDs) to operate on Zigbee networks.

Green Power is actually a number of technologies combined into one global standard that includes these features (Zigbee Green Pow-

er, Cam Williams):

• Energy harvesting technology.

• Includes mechanical, heat, light, pressure (piezo), and other energy harvesting technology.

• Ultra-low power RF silicon that uses many orders of magnitude less power than required for a sleepy or fully networked wireless

connection.

• Uses ultra-low power, non-volatile memory such as Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM).

• An open, global standard network technology that saves even more energy by reducing packet length, round trips, connection redis-

covery, and on-network time for devices that may be offline for extended periods of time.

• Zigbee – 15.4 – 2.4Ghz modules

• An open, global, standard application layer protocol that supports compressed messages and limited transactions using:

• Zigbee Application Framework (AF)

• Zigbee Cluster Library (ZCL)

UG392: Using Silicon Labs Green Power with Zigbee EmberZNet PRO

Introduction to Green Power

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