Zigbee history

The concept of the low-power wireless mesh networking became standard in the 1990s and the Zigbee Alliance was formed to address this charter in 2002. The Zigbee protocol was conceived after the ratification of IEEE 802.15.4 in 2004. That became the IEEE 802.15.4.-2003 standard on December 14, 2004. Specification 1.0, also known as the Zigbee 2004 Specification, was brought public on June 13, 2005. The history can be profiled as:

• 2005 - Zigbee 2004 released
• 2006 - Zigbee 2006 released 
• 2007 - Zigbee 2007 released, also known as Zigbee Pro (introduced cluster libraries, some backward compatibility constraints with Zigbee 2004 and 2006)

The alliance's relation to the IEEE 802.15.4 working group is similar to the IEEE 802.11 working group and the Wi-Fi Alliance. The Zigbee Alliance maintains and publishes standards for the protocol, organizes working groups, and manages the list of application profiles. The IEEE 802.15.4 defines the PHY and MAC layers, but nothing above. Additionally, 802.15.4 doesn't specify anything about multi-hop communications or application space. That is where Zigbee (and other standards built on 802.15.4) comes into play.

Zigbee is proprietary and closed standard. It requires a licensing fee and agreement provided by the Zigbee Alliance. Licensing grants the bearer Zigbee compliance and logo certification. It guarantees interoperability with other Zigbee devices.