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At CES 2017 in Las Vegas this week, Sigma Designs, the maker of wireless Z-Wave chips, is introducing an enhancement to the specification dubbed "Z-Wave SmartStart," which promises to save installers of smart home technology a substantial amount of time and effort when it comes to getting connected systems up and running.
Much in the same way that Amazon can set up one of its Echo or Dot solutions to work in a consumer's home right out of the box based on previous purchases they've made of Alexa-enabled products, Z-Wave SmartStart pre-configures devices to a customer's network before they even reach their home.
"When the devices for a home are dispatched from a distribution center, barcodes on the boxes of devices are scanned, and this is the starting point for the creation of the home network," explains Raoul Wijgergangs, vice president Z-Wave for Sigma Designs. "When those devices arrive at somebody's home and they are powered on by the installer, magically the network already exists for that home and that will dramatically reduce installation time and the mistakes that installers can make when they are creating these smart homes....