[REQUEST] Zigbee Smart Energy (ZSE) profile / "Zigbee Smart Energy Profile" (SEP) support in zigbee-on-host? #85
Description
Please consider looking into adding Zigbee Smart Energy (ZSE) profile / "Zigbee Smart Energy Profile" (SEP) support to zigbee-on-host (and zigbee-herdsman) as it been added to Zigbee 4.0 specification list of profiles. Specifically SEP 1.x (Smart Energy Profile 1.x) for Zigbee.
The Zigbee Smart Energy Profile (SEP) is a set of communication standards for smart grid applications, including smart meters, in-home energy management devices, and utility communication networks. SEP 1.x is a specific version optimized for Zigbee 802.15.4 networks. It is used to facilitate functions like tracking energy usage and managing demand response events, (as well as allow utility companies to provide pricing information to utility meters). The SEP 1.x standard is designed specificly for Zigbee (802.15.4) networks and includes functions for metering, pricing, and demand response. Before Zigbee 4.0 the SEP was not the same as a standard Zigbee network for home automation, and as I understand it may still needs its own Zigbee PAN (private area network). Plus the fact that the user have Sub-Ghz devices then it requires a special Sub-GHz radio.
The most common use case for Zigbee Smart Energy is that it is still that it is leading standard in smart metering for Home Area Networks (HAN) and as such usually use in utility meters for electricity, gas, and water so that the utility company can remotly read them. This standard is available in some meters in the United States, UK and Australia. So in some places/cases your utility company have a process to register a gateway with a utility which can then give you access to the real-time as its broadcast so you can at least read the data. (Australia the government have even mandated the use of smart meters that the end-user can access, which commonly include Zigbee meters). For example, SDG&E provides a list of compatible Home Area Network (HAN) devices on its website, which includes models from manufacturers like Copper Labs, Digi International, ecobee, and Emporia Energy. These devices connect to your smart meter to display real-time energy usage information. You can find the full list and information on how to connect devices on the SDG&E website
Thus having native support for Zigbee Smart Energy Profile (SEP) you could in theory be cable to replace propriatory gateways, like example the Rainforest Automation's EAGLE 3, EAGLE-200, or EMU-2 (Rainforest Automation EAGLE gateway appliances) which have to be authorised via the Rainforest cloud:
- https://rainforestautomation.com/us-retail-store/
- https://www.rainforestautomation.com/rfa-z114-eagle-200-2/
You are also suppose to be able to get retail variant of Zigbee Smart Energy (Zigbee SE) devices that are designed for home monitoring and actively managing energy consumption at the end-user level. See the CSA's product search to look at the Zigbee Smart Energy catagory for certified devices:
Anyway, I understand that zigbee-on-host and zigbee-herdsman does today have support for Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA), Zigbee Light Link (ZLL), and Zigbee Green Power (ZGP) profiles for devices:
Zigbee Smart Energy (ZSE, a.k.a. "Zigbee SE") devices have previously have their own specification, partially because most of them (but not all) use Sub-GHz frequqncies. However now Zigbee 4.0 lays the groundwork for harmonizing traditional Zigbee and Smart Energy devices into the new Zigbee Core R23.2 (R23.2) specification, making that revision a merger of the Zigbee 3.0 and the Zigbee Smart Energy specifications to ensure that it is fully backward compatible with both.
For reference, Zigbee PRO 2023 from the original Zigbee Protocol Specification Revision 23 (R23) has already introduces the coexistence of Zigbee and Zigbee Smart Energy devices to add initial support for Sub-GHz Zigbee to the North American and European markets. Later in 2024 the announced the ratified of Zigbee Smart Energy 1.4a which unified Smart Energy itself and addressed backward compatibility:
Note that Silicon Labs (a.k.a. Silabs) does not look to have a dedicated dual-PHY/dual-band Sub-GHz IEEE 802.15.4-based radio MCU, but Texas Instruments does have such MCU radios (currently CC1352R, CC1352P, CC1314R, CC1354R, CC1354P), where CC1354P is probably best optimized as Zigbee Coordinator right now:
FYI, Zigbee Smart Energy should today for example be supported by the standard Silicon Labs SDK for Zigbee, with Silicon Labs Zigbee EmberZnet SDK 7.2.0.0 being the first version that added support for Dual-PHY Zigbee Smart Energy support on MG24 (EFR32MG24) if used in combination with a Si4468 Sub-GHz power amplifier (PA) in a Zigbee Coordinator. Zigbee Smart Energy Dual-Band 2.4GHz and Sub-GHz support for end-devices is also available via EFR32MG12 parts.
NXP and Texas Instruments also seem provide a full stack SDK for making your own ZigBee Smart Energy devices:
I have not read through the Zigbee 4.0 specification but before that came out you could not mix frequencies on a single Zigbee Smart Energy PAN network (so at least in the past with previous ZSE you had to have two separate PAN networks if wanted to use Sub-GHz and 2.4GHz devices. However, both Texas Instruments and Silicon Labs does look to at least support Multi-PAN for Zigbee in Z-Stack and EmberZNet respectivly. So you can have one PAN network for Sub-GHz and one 2.4GHz PAN network on a single MCU. That might be a good argument for implementing native Multi-PAN support in ZHA to support multiple Zigbee networks on a single MCU radio.
PS: Note SEP 2.x (Smart Energy Profile 2.x) is not compatible with Zigbee but is a sepearate non-compatible standard that uses IP (Internet Protocol) instead.