Zigbee's present is in industry, not medicine.

That's the best conclusion to be drawn from a visit to Ember Corp., a leader in the field here. (The photo to the left is from Ember's Web site, specifically its page on industrial automation.)

Just last month Ember signed an exclusive deal to represent the Zigbee technologies of Cambridge Consultants Ltd., in the UK. The Cambridge site has a page on medical applications. But Ember's products, specifially the EM2420 radio chip and Embernet networking software, are mainly focused on industrial automation, defense, building automation and utilities.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Closer monitoring of temperatures within, say, oil refineries, can quickly pay for themselves with higher yields, lower maintenance, and lower fuel costs. In Iraq, Embernet sensors could be fired from rockets to assess threats in real-time, minimizing casualties on all sides. Remote meter reading and building thermostats

My point is that if you can read the temperature inside an oil refinery, you can read it in someone's bloodstream. If you can assess threats on a battlefield you can assess threats within the body.

The problem is that nothing goes near the body without a long vetting process, and when you're talking about simple monitoring that should not be necessary. The fact that it is means these markets are closed to early-stage Always-On technologies like Zigbee. And that's a shame.