Robotic ecologies often comprise a large number of environmental sensors and actuators, that, on the other hand, operate by means of their proper standards, among which ZigBee is one of the most widely used. Being designed to build autonomous sensor networks, the use of sensors based on ZigBee requires a deep knowledge of its logic and protocols. In order to facilitate interoperability between ZigBee sensors and external applications we designed ZB4O, an application-level gateway that exports ZigBee services in external networks. This paper describes the experience of integration of ZB4O and ZigBee networks within the robotic ecology GiraffPlus which is being developed within the EU project GiraffPlus.