Atmel announced that the BitCloud ZigBee PRO stack has been awarded ZigBee Smart Energy product certification. BitCloud Smart Energy offers utility companies a secure technology for wireless home area networks (HANs) by connecting in-premise devices, such as meters, thermostats and smart appliances, to each other and to wide area energy distribution and control networks. ZigBee Smart Energy enables utility companies and individual homeowners to manage energy usage, control residential peak demand and reduce overall environmental impact.

BitCloud SE is a ready-to-use framework for development and certification of ZigBee Smart Energy devices. It provides the underlying security and protocol stacks to ensure full interoperability and seamless communication across the HAN and comes with a complete reference implementation for ZigBee Smart Energy device types. BitCloud SE applications can be deployed on a standalone microcontroller or on a host microcontroller connected to a dedicated ZigBee Smart Energy co-processor.

Standalone microcontroller solution address the need for smaller footprint, low-power devices, such as water meters and thermostats, while the ZigBee co-processor option is targeted at larger devices, including energy service portals, and offers unlimited flexibility in the designer's choice of host microcontroller. BitCloud SE also comes with a serial protocol and communications library to simplify the development of ZigBee Smart Energy applications on the host.

BitCloud ZigBee PRO, supporting Atmel's RF transceivers and microcontrollers, is available for free download.