LonTalk is a protocol optimized for control created by Echelon Corporation

Echelon Corporation

Echelon Corporation is an American company which designs control networks to connect machines and other electronic devices, for the purposes of sensing, monitoring and control....

 for networking devices over media such as twisted pair

Twisted pair

Twisted pair cabling is a type of wiring in which two conductors are twisted together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference from external sources; for instance, electromagnetic radiation from unshielded twisted pair cables, and crosstalk between neighboring pairs...

, powerline

Powerline

Powerline or power line may refer to:* Overhead power line, used for electric power transmission* Power line communication, a computer networking technology* Power Line, a political blog* Powerline, a fictional singer in the A Goofy Movie musical...

s, fiber optics, and RF

Radio frequency

Radio frequency is a rate of oscillation in the range of about 3 kHz to 300 GHz, which corresponds to the frequency of radio waves, and the alternating currents which carry radio signals...

. It is popular for the automation of various functions in industrial control, home automation

Home automation

Home automation is the residential extension of "building automation". It is automation of the home, housework or household activity. Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC , appliances, and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and...

, transportation, and buildings systems such as lighting

Lighting

Lighting or illumination is the deliberate application of light to achieve some practical or aesthetic effect. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources such as lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylight...

 and HVAC

HVAC

HVAC refers to technology of indoor or automotive environmental comfort. HVAC system design is a major subdiscipline of mechanical engineering, based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer...

; see Intelligent building.

Protocol

LonTalk is defined by ANSI

American National Standards Institute

The American National Standards Institute is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organization also coordinates U.S. standards with international...

 Standard ANSI/CEA 709.1. The LonTalk protocol has been ratified by standards setting bodies in the following industries & regions:

• ANSI 709.1 - Control networking (US)
• EN 14908 - Building controls (EU)
• GB/Z 20177.1-2006 - Control networking and building controls (China)
• IEEE
  Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
  The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...
  
   1473-L - Train controls (US)
• SEMI E54 - Semiconductor manufacturing equipment sensors & actuators (US)
• IFSF - International forecourt standard for EU petrol stations

Recognition

Also recently, aspects of LonTalk have been recognized by international standardization bodies:

• ISO/IEC 14908-1 - Communication protocol
• ISO/IEC 14908-2 - Twisted pair wire signaling technology
• ISO/IEC 14908-3 - Power line signaling technology
• ISO/IEC 14908-4 - IP
  Internet Protocol
  The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
  
  compatibility (tunneling) technology

The protocol is only available from the official distribution organizations of each regional standards body or in the form of microprocessors manufactured by companies that have ported the standard to their respective chip designs.

External links

• Echelon Corporation Homepage
• Global Engineering Documents (purchase the current EIA, non-ANSI, specification document for EIA/CEA 709.1
• Adept Systems - wrote the C Reference Implementation of the LonTalk protocol