Echelon Corporation was an American company which designed control networks to connect machines and other electronic devices, for the purposes of sensing,

monitoring Monitoring may refer to: Science and technology Biology and healthcare * Monitoring (medicine), the observation of a disease, condition or one or several medical parameters over time * Baby monitoring * Biomonitoring, of toxic chemical compounds, ...

and control. Echelon is now owned by

Adesto Technologies Adesto Technologies is an American corporation founded in 2006 and based in Santa Clara, California. The company provides application-specific semiconductors and embedded systems for the Internet of Things (IoT), and sells its products directly t ...

History

Echelon was founded in February 1988 in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

by Clifford "Mike" Markkula Jr. The chief executive was M. Kenneth Oshman. Echelon's

LonWorks LonWorks or Local Operating Network is an open standard (ISO/IEC 14908) for networking platforms specifically created to address the needs of control applications. The platform is built on a protocol created by Echelon Corporation for networking ...

platform for control networking was released in 1990 for use in the building, industrial, transportation, and

home automation Home automation or domotics is building automation for a home, called a smart home or smart house. A home automation system will monitor and/or control home attributes such as lighting, climate, entertainment systems, and appliances. It m ...

markets. At their

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

on March 31, 1998, their shares were listed on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

exchange with the symbol ELON. Started in 2003, Echelon's Networked Energy Services system was an open metering service. Echelon provides the underlying network technology for the world's largest

Advanced Metering Infrastructure A smart meter is an electronic device that records information such as consumption of electric energy, voltage levels, current, and power factor. Smart meters communicate the information to the consumer for greater clarity of consumption beh ...

(AMI) in Italy with over 27 million connected electricity meters. Based on the experiences with this installation, Echelon developed the NES (Networked Energy Services) System (including

smart meter A smart meter is an electronic device that records information such as consumption of electric energy, voltage levels, current, and power factor. Smart meters communicate the information to the consumer for greater clarity of consumption be ...

s, data concentrators and a head-end data collection system) in October 2014 with about 3.5 million devices installed. In August 2014, after quarterly revenues dropped from $24.8 million to $15 million, Echelon announced it was leaving the smart-grid business, shifting its entire corporate focus to the

Internet of things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other com ...

as a market for its technology. Echelon committed to only support existing customers, but not grow the grid business, and to potentially seek the sale of its grid business. Echelon is based in

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara (; Spanish for " Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Bay Area. Located in the southern Bay Area, the cit ...

, with international offices in China, France, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. On June 29, 2018,

announced its intention to acquire Echelon for $45 million. The acquisition completed on September 14, 2018.

References

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External links

About Echelon CorporationLonMark International
Networking companies of the United States Computer companies established in 1988 1988 establishments in California Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Companies based in San Jose, California Companies based in Santa Clara, California Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Power-line communication Internet access 1998 initial public offerings 2018 mergers and acquisitions