Sigma Designs Launches Z-Wave Smart Home Maker Challenge

Sigma Designs and Make: Debut Smart Home Design Mission at World Maker Faire 2017 in New York Celebrating Maker Community Creativity, Collaboration and Inspiring Z-Wave App Design   

FREMONT, Calif., Sept. 19, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sigma Designs® (NASDAQ:SIGM), a leading provider of intelligent system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for Connected Smart TV platforms and Smart home IoT, and Make:, leader of the Maker movement and producer of the popular Maker Faire events, today announces a smart home Z-Wave app design contest for Makers and Developers.

Sigma Designs launches the Z-Wave Smart Home Maker Challenge today in cooperation with Make: and in unison with the flag-ship World Maker Faire that takes place in New York City September 23-24th. The smart home design competition will be hosted on the all-new Maker Share community platform where participants will have the opportunity to submit their idea for a smart home application that would turn their dream smart home experience into reality. Finalists from the idea round will receive a free Raspberry Pi equipped with the Z-Wave Developers Kit (a $130 USD Value) and their choice of one Z-Wave Certified device supplied by secondary sponsor Zwaveproducts.com to build their application and submit it for judging.

The grand-prize for the competition is a hosted trip to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, January 9-12, 2018, along with a chance to showcase the smart home project in the Z-Wave Alliance Smart Home Pavilion. The second-place winner will receive Z-Wave devices worth $2,000 USD and the third-place winner will receive Z-Wave devices worth $1,000 USD to build their own smart home system.

"Sigma Designs publicly released the Z-Wave specification to grant developers access to the full Z-Wave interoperability layer for the development of smart home applications," said Carsten Steffensen, Moderator of the Public Z-Wave Forum for Sigma Designs. "The Maker Community is renowned for its inventiveness and creativity which is why we're excited to see what they come up with when given full access to the power of Z-Wave. We're thrilled to launch this competition and look forward to evaluating the imaginative solutions submitted by the Maker Community." 

"The entire Make: team is excited to work with Sigma Designs on the launch of the first smart home-centric mission on the Maker Share platform," said Clair Whitmer, the Maker Share platform manager. "Our goal at Maker Share is to connect makers with each other and with opportunities in the community and this is a perfect example of such an opportunity. This project will showcase the maker community as a source for innovation for the home and technology. We're thrilled to partner with Sigma Designs, a company deeply entrenched in the smart home, and to launch this mission just as our Make: issue focused on the home hits newsstands and World Maker Faire opens in New York. We welcome every new maker and every new idea to Maker Share."

Full details regarding the competition including eligibility, restrictions, submission deadlines, and prizes are available on the Maker Share competition page: https://makershare.com/missions/z-wave-challenge. Participants can access the Public Z-Wave Specification at this link: http://z-wave.sigmadesigns.com/design-z-wave/z-wave-public-specification/. 

About Sigma Designs
Sigma Designs, Inc. (NASDAQ:SIGM) is a world leader in enabling smart home convergence. The company designs and builds the essential semiconductor technologies that serve as the foundation for the world's leading Connected Smart TV platforms, and Internet of Things (IoT) for smart home devices. For more information about Sigma Designs, please visit www.sigmadesigns.com.

About Z-Wave
Z-Wave technology is an open internationally recognized ITU standard (G.9959). It is the leading wireless home control technology in the market today, with over 2100 certified interoperable products worldwide. Represented by the Z-Wave Alliance, and supported by more than 600 companies around the world, the standard is a key enabler of smart living solutions for home safety and security, energy, hospitality, office and light commercial applications.

Z-Wave® is a registered trademark of Sigma Designs and its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

About MAKE:
Make: is a global platform for connecting makers with each other, with products and services, and with our partners. Through media, events, and products, Make: serves a growing community of makers who bring a DIY mindset to technology. Whether as hobbyists or professionals, makers are creative, resourceful, and curious, developing projects that demonstrate how they can interact with the world around them. The launch of Make: magazine in 2005, followed by Maker Faire in 2006, jumpstarted a worldwide Maker Movement, which is transforming innovation, culture and education. Headquartered in San Francisco, the Make: brand caters to a universe of more than 25 million makers collectively across its properties.

Forward Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including statements about the benefits of the use of Z-Wave in product offerings, including the benefits of certain enhanced features of Z-Wave devices. Actual results may vary materially due to a number of factors including, but not limited to, consumer and customer acceptance of the Z-Wave technology in the relevant regions, the ability of the Z-Wave technology to compete with other technologies or related products in the market, if any, as well as other risks that are detailed from time to time in our reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission, including reports made on Form 10-Q. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward- looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to publicly release or otherwise disclose the result of any revision to these forward-looking statements that may be made as a result of events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

Press Contacts:
Mary Miller
Sigma Designs
+1-510-897-1069
Mary_Miller@sigmadesigns.com

Alexandra Crabb
Caster Communications
+1-401-792-7080
alex@castercomm.com