An emerging trend in internet of things (IoT) sensors is to expand battery life to a point where devices operate up to or beyond 10 years.
Protocols are emerging that allow these sensors to remain dormant until something meaningful happens. This results in a device transmitting data less, sleeping more and in some cases, eliminating batteries altogether.
This race to build 10-year IoT sensors is about to overhaul how devices communicate, behave and use energy, resulting in a reduction in the dependency on batteries and sending data constantly. Instead, new approaches, like direct-to-hub communication, reduce these data transmissions and event-only reporting models are emerging as the new way to deploy IoT sensors.
“It’s not one breakthrough, it’s the convergence of several design decisions across the stack,” said Avi Rosenthal, chairman of the board at the Z-Wave Alliance.
Designing for long life
One protocol looking to capitalize on the emergence of 10-year batteries is Z-Wave Long Range (ZWLR). Recently, the Z-Wave Alliance released its 2025B specification and certification program update that included support for wake on event end node (WOEEN) devices.
WOEEN gives designers a new device class in battery-free smart home devices. Combined with ZWLR, where signal hopping in the mesh network is eliminated and replaced with a direct link to the hub, connected devices become more reliable, faster and require less power, or sometimes no power at all.
“[WOEEN] limits the communication between the device and the hub to events-only,” said Agnes Lorenz, VP at Zooz, a Z-Wave Alliance member and maker of smart home sensors. “This is ideal for many different types of sensors, which can now be activated only when an activity is recorded.”
WOEEN extends the Z-Wave ecosystem beyond battery-powered devices to include battery-free, energy-harvesting products. In these battery-free devices, an event like a button press or a switch flipped not only triggers communication but generates the power needed to transmit.
“This is a game changer for large deployments in commercial settings when battery maintenance poses serious cost issues,” Lorenz added. “Keep in mind that this device type can be used for products that still run on batteries, extending battery life beyond what we've seen to date.”
Designed to behave
The WOEEN specification is one part. The other part is how devices are designed to behave.
According to Rosenthal, the shift in event-driven communication combined with efficient communication and “intelligent device behavior” you can start to see how “multi-year, and even decade-long, battery life becomes realistic at scale.”
The goal is to maximize battery life but not at the expense of capability. The value isn’t in continuously streaming data; it is reporting meaningful events.
“From a network perspective, the shift to a star topology introduces a different kind of dependency on the hub, but it also enables greater scale, longer range, and more predictable performance,” Rosenthal said.
Additionally, the systems can still operate locally, without cloud dependency, he added.
Ultra-long use cases
Maintenance costs are a big barrier to connected ecosystems. With battery life out of the picture, these long-life batteries are now applicable for large commercial settings, according to Lorenz.
“Think about places that were not traditionally accessible to wireless products, like large outdoor spaces (farms, parking lots, construction sites) that can now be monitored with devices running on standard batteries or kinetic power,” Lorenz said.
Devices or environments with a built-in mechanical action or a clearly defined event This includes:
- Switches
- Scene controllers
- Dimmers
- Remote controls
- Blind controls
- Door or cabinet monitoring switches
- Leak detectors
That creates a future where smart-home controls can be placed wherever they are most useful, without worrying about wiring or batteries,” said Lawrence Richenstein, Founder/CEO of WePower Technologies.
Economics of deployment
Because these devices are moving from a one- to two-year battery cycle to something approaching a decade, the economics of deployment are changed.
“Maintenance becomes the exception instead of the expectation,” Rosenthal said. “That’s especially important in multi-dwelling units, hospitality, and large-scale properties, where battery replacement isn’t just inconvenient, it’s operationally expensive.”
Additionally, a greater number of sensors, covering a larger area, can be deployed without worry about the ongoing service costs, he said.
“At an ecosystem level, this is a shift from ‘connected devices’ to truly persistent infrastructure,” Rosenthal said. “Systems you install once and rely on for years. That is a meaningful step forward for the industry.”
The economies of deployment would:
- Reduce truck rolls
- Maintenance labor
- Tenant disruption
- Risk of dead devices being forgotten
With ZWLR and its support for large node counts, commercial deployment to multi-family scale properties or hospitality venues is even more significant, Richenstein said. This means completely removing maintenance cycle for some devices and for others eliminating batteries where it might be inconvenient or wasteful.
“In outdoor locations exposed to the elements, eliminating the battery compartment enhances durability,” Richenstein said. “We think the bigger shift is not just fewer battery changes, but a new design mindset that lets devices be placed where they make the most sense for the user, because power no longer dictates installation.”
Learn more about ZWLR and how battery-free devices will enable 10-year IoT sensors with Z-Wave Alliance’s White paper.
