single-source specification, it will become a multi-source, wireless smart home standard developed by collective working group members of the Z-Wave Alliance. The Z-Wave Alliance would become a standards development organization (SDO), while continuing to manage the certification program. In August 2020, the Z-Wave Alliance officially became incorporated as an independent nonprofit standards development organization, with seven founding members under its new SDO structure: Alarm.com, Assa Abloy, Leedarson, Ring, Silicon Labs, StratIS, and Qolsys. Under the SDO, there are new membership levels, workgroups, and committees, including technical working groups specific to features, and certification, security, and marketing groups. Technical characteristics Radio frequencies Z-Wave is designed to provide reliable, low-latency transmission of small data packets at data rates up to 100kbit/s, and is suitable for control and sensor applications, unlike Wi-Fi and other IEEE 802.11-based wireless LAN systems that are designed primarily for high data rates. Communication distance between two nodes is 200 meters line of sight outdoors and 50 meters line of sight indoors, and with message ability to hop up to four times between nodes, it gives enough coverage for most residential houses. Modulation is frequency-shift keying (FSK) with Manchester encoding, and other supported modulations schemes include GFSK and DSSS-OQPSK. Z-Wave uses the Part 15 unlicensed industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band, operating on varying frequencies globally. For instance, in Europe it operates at the 868-869 MHz band while in North America the band varies from 908-916 MHz when Z-Wave is operating as a mesh network and 912-920 MHz when Z-Wave is operating with a star topology in Z-Wave LR mode. Z-Wave's mesh network band competes with some cordless telephones and other consumer electronics devices, but avoids interference with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other systems that operate on the crowded band. The lower layers, MAC and PHY, are described by ITU-T G.9959 and fully backwards compatible. In 2012, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) included the Z-Wave PHY and MAC layers as an option in its G.9959 standard for wireless devices under 1 GHz. Data rates include 9600 bit/s and 40 kbit/s, with output power at 1 mW or 0 dBm. Z-Wave has been released to be used frequencies with the following frequency bands in various parts of the world: Network setup, topology and routing Traditional hub-and-spoke networks include one central hub or access point to which all devices are connected, such as a wireless device connecting to a router. Z-Wave devices