Z-Wave Gets a Vital Boost as Trident IoT Emerges as a New Silicon Provider

The ongoing evolution of the smart home ecosystem has offered yet another definitive sign that the universal Matter standard is not going to swiftly eliminate or replace all pre-existing wireless protocols. This reality was underscored this week with the official launch of Trident IoT, a newly formed company dedicated to designing and building specialized chips for the Z-Wave standard. Founded in April with the express mission to support and advance Z-Wave device development, Trident burst onto the scene with a major milestone: the enterprise is just a month away from taping out its proprietary chips, with firm plans to begin sampling them to hardware manufacturers before the end of this calendar year.

This development marks a monumental moment for the smart home industry at large and the Z-Wave standard in particular. For decades, industry observers, developers, and smart home enthusiasts discussing the Z-Wave protocol have shared a consistent mix of viewpoints. On one hand, users universally praised the mesh network’s exceptional reliability, range, and capability to handle complex device topologies. On the other hand, there has been a persistent undercurrent of frustration regarding the silicon supply chain. Historically, only a single company—Zensys—provided the necessary silicon to power these devices. This singular dependency long served as a major point of anxiety for device manufacturers and consumers alike, who desperately wanted a secondary source for chips to keep market pricing competitive and to serve as a vital safety net in the event that the primary supplier ever ceased operations.

The historical trajectory toward a second silicon source has been long and winding. Back in 2008, Zensys was acquired by Sigma Designs, sparking renewed optimism within the community that a secondary silicon provider might finally emerge or that the proprietary standard would be opened up to wider manufacturing. Unfortunately, Sigma Designs opted to keep the radio protocol tightly controlled. A decade later, in 2018, Silicon Labs acquired Sigma Designs, which once again injected a wave of excitement and anticipation into the Z-Wave ecosystem. That hope began to materialize in 2020 when Silicon Labs initiated the gradual process of opening up the standard by officially spinning out the independent Z-Wave Alliance. The momentum continued into 2022, when the Z-Wave Alliance made the landmark announcement that the full source code was finally available to anyone, and that the underlying technology had been successfully ported to a new chip architecture.

Consequently, it has been a remarkably arduous road to arrive at the current juncture with Trident IoT and the introduction of a legitimate, long-awaited second source for Z-Wave silicon. Over that extensive timeframe, the broader smart home market shifted dramatically. Consumer adoption skyrocketed, and daily conversations about underlying radio protocols were largely overshadowed by urgent discussions regarding interoperability between disparate vendor ecosystems. Rather than deeply evaluating whether a device operated via Z-Wave or ZigBee, everyday consumers were primarily trying to figure out whether a newly purchased smart sensor would seamlessly integrate with Google Nest or Amazon Alexa.

During this period of transition, commercial security companies remained steadfast in their reliance on Z-Wave for mission-critical alarm systems and access control installations, while hardcore do-it-yourself enthusiasts continued to seek out specialized home automation hubs equipped with native Z-Wave radios. However, following major announcements from big technology vendors pledging their full support for the Matter smart home standard—which relies heavily on Wi-Fi and Thread—it became commonplace for industry analysts to predict that Z-Wave would eventually fade into obscurity.

Yet, as the launch of Trident IoT proves, Z-Wave is refusing to exit the market without a substantial fight. Industry conversations with companies that build commercial security hardware and advanced physical access control devices reveal a continued, deeply rooted investment in the Z-Wave standard. Furthermore, the Z-Wave Alliance has poured considerable engineering effort into developing and promoting long-range iterations of the mesh network architecture, capable of transmitting secure data packets over outdoor distances stretching up to a mile. As of March of this year, the ecosystem boasted a robust foundation of more than 4,000 certified Z-Wave devices. Trident IoT Founder and Chief Technology Officer Mariusz Malkowski reports that he has already engaged in active discussions with numerous prospective hardware manufacturers interested in building even more.

Significantly, Malkowski noted that Trident IoT is not limiting its engineering scope exclusively to a single protocol. The company is intentionally focusing on a wide array of wireless standards to ensure that its clientele can easily build versatile devices capable of working seamlessly with Z-Wave, Matter, Thread, ZigBee, or any other connectivity protocol that a specific client might require. To achieve this, the enterprise has assembled a deep bench of engineering talent specializing in a multitude of distinct Internet of Things protocols. This broad, multi-standard embrace mirrors the strategic evolution of Silicon Labs itself, which transformed over the years into a dedicated, multi-protocol IoT chip and semiconductor powerhouse.

Malkowski has publicly noted that Silicon Labs is supportive of the groundbreaking work Trident IoT is undertaking, a sentiment underscored by the inclusion of an endorsing quote from a Silicon Labs employee within Trident’s official launch press release. Industry analysts expect that if Trident achieves commercial success, the milestone will encourage a greater number of hardware manufacturers to adopt Z-Wave, while simultaneously providing much-needed reassurance to existing Z-Wave customers who have long demanded supply chain redundancy. Ultimately, this structural shift introduces a healthy competitive dynamic that benefits both semiconductor entities.

From a broader perspective, this resurgence is profoundly advantageous for end-users as well, particularly at a time when dedicated smart home hubs are making a notable comeback in consumer households. While the Matter protocol has undoubtedly transformed the industry, it has also encountered distinct growing pains during its initial rollout. Against this backdrop, the potential benefits offered by a long-range Z-Wave option—especially for powering smart sensors deployed across expansive yards, perimeter gates, or distant access control endpoints—remain remarkably high and difficult to replicate with short-range protocols alone. The classic computing trope regarding the proliferation of competing standards continues to play out in real-time across the modern smart home landscape, but for hardware manufacturers and consumers betting on the reliability of Z-Wave, the arrival of Trident IoT ensures they finally have a viable, independent alternative moving forward.