Unlocking new market opportunities, Zigbee Alliance opens up a certification fast track

The newly launched Zigbee Alliance Certification Transfer Program creates new markets for Alliance members and provides a fast path to build and grow the IoT ecosystem. The Zigbee Certification Transfer Program is designed to assist Alliance members, and for the first time, allow non-Alliance members to use their own brands to promote and sell certified products from other Alliance members while maintaining the product's certification status. After the official announcement of this plan, all Zigbee developers in the market are looking forward to benefiting the industry and a large number of consumer customers.

The program provides flexibility to allow for modest changes to certified products, such as designing a new housing, changing product packaging or changing the user interface, which means that a member's certified product can be redesigned to meet the needs of different users, aesthetics or price points.

Zigbee Certification Transfer Program Basics

Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of the Zigbee Alliance’s Certification Transfer Program for developers:

Zigbee product vendors who need to expand their product line can now use this program to fill gaps and maintain consistency in their product branding .

New companies that want to enter the IoT market can now complete certification work quickly and easily without the expertise to design and develop products themselves.

Ecosystem developers can not only freely choose from hundreds of Zigbee certified products, but also promote these products with their own advantageous branding.

Solution Providers Once a design has been developed and certified, it can support hundreds of new devices while ensuring performance and interoperability.

New Zigbee Certification Transfer Program Creates All-Inclusive Certification Pathway

In the past, the Alliance has offered two certification paths to member companies that wish to certify their products.

1. New Product Certification : Requires products to undergo rigorous testing by an authorized testing service provider to ensure that the product complies with the Zigbee standard. This is required for all new products seeking certification status.

2. Similarity Certification : Allows members to certify products based on their similarity to products they have already certified ( “ members themselves ” is an important distinction, explained further below). This is a great way for derivative products to hitch a ride on the original certified product that is essentially the same in function and construction, speeding up time to market while also allowing for minor variations.

These two avenues are somewhat limiting, as there is no way for a company to promote and sell another company's certified products under its own brand. If you are not a member of the Alliance, there is even less you can do.

That’s where the new Certification Transfer Program comes in. The new Certification Transfer Program uses common-sense, similar certification application criteria to allow certification transfers between companies. The original supplier (a Zigbee Alliance member at the Participant or Promoter level) simply registers their certified product under the program, and their customers (other Alliance members or non-Alliance members entering the market) can apply to receive the certification transfer. It’s that simple!

Why this matters to you

If you are a Promoter or Participant level Alliance member, this program is relevant to you and really important. By registering your product in the Certification Transfer Program, you can provide more value to new and existing customers, allowing them to leverage their own brand and the trusted Zigbee Alliance Certified Product logo to bring products to market faster.

For adopters and new companies, this is important too, really. It means being able to easily enter the IoT space with new products without the expertise to develop them yourself, which greatly reduces the barrier to entry, time to market, and cost to market, and gives you more time to focus on customizing your product for the end user (that’s the fun part) and less time fiddling with networking features (which our team actually found interesting).

This also means your product can easily enter the Zigbee Alliance certified ecosystem, which already has more than 500 million products in the world. You read that right, 500 million.

How to Participate in the Certification Transfer Program

Only Promoter and Participant members can register products in the Certification Transfer Program (to see which products are eligible, visit the Alliance website). Any member with valid qualifications (Adopters, Participants, or Promoters) can obtain a transfer certification for a derivative product from another company through the program.

Non-Alliance members are also eligible for certification transfers (up to 10 per year ) provided they agree to abide by the Terms of Use of the Zigbee Certified Product Trademark and Logo and have never previously joined the Alliance.

The Alliance has simplified the onboarding process. Promoter and Participant members can register online through the Alliance Certification Portal to qualify their products for the program. These members, as well as Adopters, can apply for certification transfers from different companies in the same portal.

Non-alliance members have a separate, easy-to-use online portal for submitting applications. For more details on the program’s process, rules of participation, and benefits, please visit this link : https://zigbeecertifiedproducts.knack.com/zigbee-certified#cert-transfer-program

Cultivate innovative and high-quality Zigbee new blood

In summary, the Certification Transfer Program directly serves the Zigbee Alliance's mission to ignite creativity and advance collaboration in the Internet of Things by creating, evolving and promoting universal open standards that enable all objects to connect and interact. The smart home ecosystem is expanding with the growing number of consumers, and we believe that this program can quickly foster innovation in the Internet of Things and, more importantly, create new revenue streams for new and existing players in the IoT market space, both of which are goals our team continues to work hard to achieve for our customers and the industry as a whole. To learn more about the process and benefits of this program, please visit the Alliance website or contact certification@zigbee.org .

By Daniel Moneta , Zigbee Alliance Board Member and Market Working Group Chair

Original link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/AcERWLl4coCQoSEjtLi-wA

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