Cambridge, UK-based Green Energy Options (GEO) has selected Ember’s ZigBee wireless networking technology for developing energy management displays that can help building and home-owners cut their energy costs and carbon footprint.
GEO specializes in consumer-facing displays, energy management hubs, associated sensors and energy apps for smart phones, PCs and iPads. The company’s mission is to “make energy visible” through a range of energy display products that are easy, engaging and enable people to take control of their energy consumption.
The company has integrated Ember’s ZigBee chips, ZigBee PRO networking software, and ZigBee SE (Smart Energy) Suite into its family of wireless devices. GEO is working with meter manufacturers and utilities worldwide to help deliver Ember-enabled “push” energy monitors that feed energy information directly into a consumer’s front room over a ZigBee network. For example, GEO has developed a new connected home product for its customer Scottish Power, a leading UK energy company, using Ember’s technology to communicate with the utility’s smart meters. GEO also offers an Ember-enabled one-touch controller that gives users the ability to control appliances simply from the display so that they can react immediately to real-time energy information.
“Ember’s ZigBee chips and software are the best in the industry. But what really sold us on Ember was its Smart Energy Suite of tools and software that enabled us to rapidly develop ZigBee-certified solutions for our customers,” said GEO Chief Executive Officer Patrick Caiger-Smith. “The easy-to-use graphical tools and highly secure environment offered us the fastest way to bring great products to market.”
Rapid development is critical for GEO because the company develops custom displays for many of its customers. It offers three flexible prototype systems customers can use to test out different functions, and then GEO engineers design a solution based on a customer’s unique requirements.
GEO’s products employ the EM300 Series, Ember’s next-generation ZigBee chip family that packs the industry’s highest wireless networking performance and application code into the lowest power-consuming chip set. The world’s first ARM Cortex-M3 based ZigBee system-on-chip (SoCs), the EM300 Series delivers industry leading performance, code density and power efficiency.
Ember’s ZigBee networking systems simplify the complexity of integrating embedded software, networking and RF for developing low-power, wireless products in the connected home, smart energy and other remote monitoring and control applications.
“Few people have any idea how much energy they are using, let alone wasting. While there are many energy display systems on the market, Green Energy Options stands out with products designed specifically to engage people’s interest in their own energy consumption,” said Bert Lutje Berenbroek, Ember’s vice president of sales for EMEA. “GEO’s technology makes energy consumption, and consequently savings, visible, attractive and relevant to consumers. ZigBee wireless connectivity is critical to that unique, simple user experience.”
About Green Energy Options
Based in Cambridge, UK and Potsdam, Germany, Green Energy Options (GEO) specialises in the design and manufacture of energy management display systems for the domestic and commercial market.
GEO aims to capture people’s interest by making energy visible and making information easy to understand. All products focus on engaging people and their interest; keeping things simple, attractive and relevant to ensure the product is useful and effective.
Employing 35 direct staff and more than 250 people through outsourced work, GEO has seen significant growth having positioned the business as a technology leader. There are currently over 1,000,000 GEO displays in the market from the four ranges of displays and web applications.
Growth has been strengthened by two volume supply chains and probably the largest range of displays on the market. Whether the requirement is a metering option for your home, school, or business GEO has the right solution and support for you. For more information visit: www.greenenergyoptions.co.uk.
About Ember
Ember Corporation (www.ember.com) develops wireless mesh networking technology – chips, software and tools – for Smart Energy, connected homes, and many other monitoring and control applications enabling greener living and work environments. The Boston-based company is a promoter of the ZigBee Alliance with an IC design center in Cambridge, England, an office in Hong Kong and sales channels and distributors worldwide.
ZigBee: Control your world
ZigBee offers green and global wireless standards connecting the widest range of devices to work together intelligently and help you control your world. The ZigBee Alliance is an open, non- profit association of approximately 400 organizations driving development of innovative, reliable and easy-to-use ZigBee standards. The Alliance promotes worldwide adoption of ZigBee as the leading wirelessly networked, sensing and control standard for use in consumer, commercial and industrial areas. For more information, visit: www.ZigBee.org.
