Developing a ZigBee home automation network

As electronics and appliances in the home continue to evolve, wireless networks that can monitor and control these are becoming more prevalent. Development platforms for technologies like RF4CE and ZigBee are becoming more available but can still be costly for a complete platform that supports interoperable devices with public ZigBee profiles. This paper details the design and implementation of a ZigBee Home Automation network using free tools on a low cost ZigBee development platform. The platform utilizes a dedicated processor for the ZigBee stack with SPI, UART, and USB interface, allowing the application code that was developed to be integrated into a wide variety of environments.