Connectivity Standards Alliance

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This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

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The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) is a standards organization for the emerging Matter standard in smart-home and home automation applications. It is funded by an industry consortium that includes the majority of companies in the smart-home or home automation field.

CSA was formerly called the Zigbee Alliance[1], and it also maintains and publishes the older Zigbee® standard. Zigbee is an IEEE 802.15.4-based specification for a suite of high-level communication protocols used to create personal area networks with small, low-power digital radios, that are used in home automation products.

The organization publishes application profiles that allow multiple OEM vendors to create interoperable products.

The relationship between IEEE 802.15.4 and Zigbee[2] is similar to that between IEEE 802.11 and the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Formation	2002; 21 years ago
Type	501(c)(6), Trade Association
Tax ID no. 	38-3655436
Headquarters	Davis, California, United States
Website	csa-iot.org

Over the years, the Alliance's membership has grown to over 500 companies, including the likes of Comcast, Ikea, Legrand, Samsung SmartThings, and Amazon.[3] The Zigbee Alliance has three levels of membership: adopter, participant, and promoter.[3] The adopter members are allowed access to completed Zigbee specifications and standards, and the participant members have voting rights, play a role in Zigbee development, and have early access to specifications and standards for product development.

The requirements for membership in the Zigbee Alliance cause problems for free-software developers because the annual fee conflicts with the GNU General Public Licence.[4] The requirements for developers to join the Zigbee Alliance also conflict with most other free-software licenses.[5] The Zigbee Alliance board of directors has been asked to make their license compatible with GPL, but refused.[6] Bluetooth has GPL-licensed implementations.[7]

As of May 11, 2021, the Zigbee Alliance has been rebranded to Connectivity Standards Alliance.[8]

## Attribution[edit]

Some content on this page may previously have appeared on Wikipedia.

## References[edit]

1. ↑ About the ZigBee Alliance. ZigBee.org. ZigBee Alliance.
2. ↑ Wireless Sensor Networks Research Group. Sensor Networks (November 17, 2008).
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Our Members. ZigBee.org. Zigbee Alliance (August 13, 2014).
4. ↑ FAQ for BEN WPAN. en.Qi-Hardware.com. Qi Hardware. “ZigBee is only royalty-free if not used for commercial purposes”
5. ↑ Zigbee, Linux, and the GPL. Freak Labs.
6. ↑ The Internet of Things becomes the Game of Thrones in standards war, The Register, May 21, 2015.
7. ↑ Common questions. BlueZ Project.
8. ↑ The Zigbee Alliance Rebrands as Connectivity Standards Alliance.