The Thread Group and the ZigBee Alliance plan to make their technologies work together in connected home products, which could help bring more order to the Internet of Things.

The organizations announced on Thursday they are collaborating to make a ZigBee application layer run over Thread networks. Specifically, ZCL [ZigBee Cluster Library], an application layer used in ZigBee products, will be able to work with Thread’s mesh networking protocol. ZCL defines how connected devices such as lightbulbs and thermostats tell each other what they are and what they can do.

Many different application layers can run on top of Thread, and the partnership isn’t exclusive for either party. But the combined technology might become an attractive package for streamlined development of home IoT products. That’s what the organizations hope, anyway.

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