Introduction to Z-devices - page 4

I imagine a line of smart devices. I call them "Z-devices".

The Z-device sales catalog will include servos, displays, buzzers, speakers, microphones, flex sensors, temperature sensors, potentiometers, distance sensors, power relays, LEDs, GPS units, inertial measurement units, etc: all the usual stuff as sold by AdaFruit, SparkFun, Seeed Studios, etc. These generally are designed for wired connection to an Arduino or similar microcontroller, and are generally the building blocks out of which more complex mechanical and electronic systems are made.

But Z-devices will be different because inside each of them will be a powerful "Z-chip", (or for now, "Z-board").

Lots of software related to each device will be preloaded it into its Z-chip, so that every Z-device can execute many high-level functions independent of a host computer.

And Z-devices can handle lots of very intelligent network behavior so that groups of Z-devices can operate autonomously. For example, once a host commands a Z-lamp to gets its brightness from a Z-knob, those two devices can continue to talk to each other without further commands from the host, and can be moved away or completely cut off from their original network connections.

Essentially, we can program the network itself.

We could tell a microphone to look for the word "abracadbra" and when found, tell a lock to open. This takes all cpu overhead off the host, as the mike and lock continue to operate without further attention from any host.

As this "Z-chip" doesn't exist yet, for prototyping purposes we will create a small "Z-board" which has all the proposed capabilities of the Z-chip except for size (and speed and power and other properties), and instead of putting it inside the device, in some cases we may have to literally glue it on to the outside of the device.

In the future, we will have our Z-chip. We don't know just how far off in the future that will be, but we shall start toward it right now.