By Jen Ferency, Z-Wave Alliance Community Manager
Barcelona is one of my favorite cities in Europe! Who can say no to fabulous food, beautiful historical sites, kind people, Cava, Flamenco dancers, and so much more. And in case you’re wondering, yes, La Sagrada Familia is STILL under construction.
When members spoke up requesting a Z-Wave Alliance Summit & Unplug Fest in the EMEA region, the Alliance listened… and thank goodness we did. Every speaking session was full with standing room only and the shared information was invaluable, prompted many conversations, and sparked a lot of great ideas. The networking opportunities forged new partnerships, new members, and requests for this to be an annual event.
Members joined us from all over Europe, America and Asia—some as far as Singapore and Hong Kong!
Unplug Fest hit the streets of Barcelona
Day one, we kicked off with a member-only event, Unplug Fest. Led by “Dr. Z-Wave” himself, the event had the help and participation of many members; creativity was flowing!
With over a dozen members including engineers, developers and product managers jumping at the opportunity to test and experience device-to-device interoperability for both Z-Wave and Z-Wave Long Range (ZWLR) products, Dr. Z-Wave posted up at the venue to monitor the results on his laptop while members took their devices outside to collect data and understand real-life and real-time results. The results proved that even on a busy street in the heart of beautiful Barcelona, and with plenty of “noise”, ZWLR successfully allows devices to communicate with one another.
Let’s talk ZWLR in EMEA, European regulations, and important insights from European installers
From the attendance and conversations, it’s clear that ZWLR is a hot topic in the European market and our members shared critical information about open source, new regulations, and cybersecurity standards to ensure manufacturers are providing end users with secure and innovative products specifically for the European market.
Installers expect homes and commercial properties to move from a “connected home” to a “smart home”, where having Z-Wave devices throughout a property will be a major selling point because people will know it’s a seamless ecosystem of devices. It’s critical for installers to be properly educated on Z-Wave interoperability across devices, both with Z-Wave and ZWLR, not only for installation purposes, but because they have a large influence on what devices, and which protocol, end users purchase and put in their homes and businesses.
Z-Wave Alliance Events
A special thank you to our sponsors for helping make the Z-Wave Alliance Summit & Unplug Fest EMEA happen: ADT, Alarm.com, MK Logic GmbH, Nice Group, Open Home Foundation, Shelly Group, Silicon Labs, and Trident IoT.
If you missed out on the Z-Wave Alliance Summit & Unplug Fest EMEA, we hope you’re able to join us for the Z-Wave Alliance Summit & Unplug Fest in Carlsbad, California this October. Don’t miss your chance to get involved, share your expertise, and continue to grow the Z-Wave ecosystem.
