Rainforest Automation and Bit Stew Systems Unite SEP 1.x and 2.0
Meanwhile in Vancouver, residential energy management product developer Rainforest Automation unveiled its new SWIFT™ Smart Energy Wireless Information Terminal product along with Bit Stew’s Grid Director 2.0 Device Management Platform. The SWIFT™ is a Home Area Network (HAN) device that displays home energy use on an 8-inch color touch screen. It comes bundled with Rainforest’s popular RAVEn™ USB adapter that communicates directly with smart meters that have been equipped with ZigBee® Smart Energy Profile (SEP) 1.x wireless capability. The SWIFT™ also has a built-in Wi-Fi radio with gateway software based on the preliminary version of SEP 2.0 recently approved by the ZigBee® Alliance.
“In addition to providing all of the functions of an in-home display, the SWIFT™ also translates the ZigBee® SEP 1.x data stream into SEP 2.0 over Wi-Fi, said Chris Tumpach, president of Rainforest Automation. “This provides a painless upgrade path for the millions of SEP 1.x meters in the field today – without the need for a separate gateway.”
Rainforest Automation partnered with Bit Stew Systems, a leading provider of smart energy software solutions to the Utility Industry because of their knowledge and leadership in Smart Grid, HAN registration and management, cloud-based services and SEP 2.0 implementations.. In addition, Bit Stew Systems provides a robust platform featuring integrated functionality in AMI Management, Home Energy Management, Demand Response, Revenue Protection and Advanced Device Management. Bit Stew’s Grid Director 2.0 platform has recently been selected by a number of large utilities to support their on-going operations and deployment activities.
“The SWIFT™ connects seamlessly to our Grid Director 2.0 Platform suite,” said Kevin Collins, CEO of Bit Stew. “This exploits the advantages of Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity, extending the availability of real-time energy information to the Web, social networks, and mobile devices. Utilities can now provide comprehensive access to smart meter data for their customers, secure in the knowledge that they will have access to all of the future potential provided by universal IP connectivity.”
The SWIFT™ uses the chumby software content platform as its operating system. This gives consumers access to over 1500 additional apps, including many of the most popular internet services. This means that latest versions of software are always available, and adding new features and updates is done automatically. The SWIFT™ will be shipping in limited quantities in December.