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Z-Wave Alliance Announces Z-Wave Source Code Project Now Open and Available

z-wavealliance.org

111–120 of 125 posts

Re: Z-Wave Alliance Announces Z-Wave Source Code Project Now Open and Available

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like when Insteon shut down Agreed, though I am not reliant on the Insteon company for anything but parts, since it's an entirely local protocol. And they're producing new parts again! I was also in a bit lucky of a position: I had plenty of spare hardware on hand while the company was shut down. > IP seems the simplest option If security is unimportant, sure. Insteon hardware has been around for three decades, but…

> If security is unimportant, sure. Insteon hardware has been around for three decades, but nobody in their right mind would be using network hardware from back then. Sure to hardware but we’re all still using IP protocols. Countless companies have risen and fallen and that hasn’t changed. Networking equipment if kept LAN only should still work fine after 3 decades. > which is just a COM port on my PC. The company's…

Most people aren't equipped to ensure their IP devices can only talk to other LAN devices (I am, my cameras live on a VLAN that can't route to the web). Combine IP capability with the possibility for software updates, and you have botnet fuel. It's why IP cameras are a leading source of botnet participants: Long-lasting IP hardware often managed by users without VLAN segmentation.

Re: Z-Wave Alliance Announces Z-Wave Source Code Project Now Open and Available

#112

I installed Z-Wave all over my house. Replaced all the switches, got the sensors, light bulbs where necessary, everything was Z-Wave... and it was a nightmare. I ended up selling the house with everything Z-Wave still in it, and the new owners were happy to have a "Smart Home" capable home, but I will never again touch Z-Wave. Once your Z-Wave network grows past a certain number of devices it becomes too chatty and d…

What smart light switches would you recommend?

Re: Z-Wave Alliance Announces Z-Wave Source Code Project Now Open and Available

#113
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider separate VLANs for each type of Z-Wave hardware to reduce the broadcasts?

As the other commenter said it's not a LAN issue. Z-Wave is a mesh radio protocol totally independent of the LAN. There are in fact issues with older Z-Wave specs and versions bogging down due to congestion.

Ok my bad. It's a L1 or physical layer issue.

Re: Z-Wave Alliance Announces Z-Wave Source Code Project Now Open and Available

#114

I installed Z-Wave all over my house. Replaced all the switches, got the sensors, light bulbs where necessary, everything was Z-Wave... and it was a nightmare. I ended up selling the house with everything Z-Wave still in it, and the new owners were happy to have a "Smart Home" capable home, but I will never again touch Z-Wave. Once your Z-Wave network grows past a certain number of devices it becomes too chatty and d…

I have about 40 Zigbee devices connected to Zigbee2mqtt. Everything has worked since I started 3 years ago. Its only gone wrong when I mess an upgrade up (once).

I like that my smart home is not a full time job. It's nice being set it and forget it. Heck I've spent more weekends stopping Windows breaking my NVR recording system then Zigbee. It's great.

Re: Z-Wave Alliance Announces Z-Wave Source Code Project Now Open and Available

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Z-Wave devices are almost universally better (longer battery life, longer range, more reliable, etc.) than Zigbee (I have both). Not sure if this is based on price (Z-Wave devices being more expensive), certification, different radio frequency, or something else. With the investment into Thread (still sharing frequency with 2.4 GHz WiFi) I could see this changing.

I don't own ZWave devices, but comments here seem to question their superiority. The range and battery life is likely due to the lower-frequency it uses, which is less congested and longer range. Typically, this will translate to a lower power usage (better battery life).

Linus tech tips has done a few videos on his smart home (z-wave) and he does not seem overly happy with it..

I'm really glad I went Zigbee as its been almost completely pain free even with third party non cloud software.

I can't fault it but I do worry about future security updates should something be discovered in Zigbees stack.

Re: Z-Wave Alliance Announces Z-Wave Source Code Project Now Open and Available

#116

I installed Z-Wave all over my house. Replaced all the switches, got the sensors, light bulbs where necessary, everything was Z-Wave... and it was a nightmare. I ended up selling the house with everything Z-Wave still in it, and the new owners were happy to have a "Smart Home" capable home, but I will never again touch Z-Wave. Once your Z-Wave network grows past a certain number of devices it becomes too chatty and d…

I'm on my second home of full Z-wave (mostly Fibaro, pricey but would recommend) and though smaller this isn't my experience at all.

No it's not perfect but agree with others that the S2 seems to be way better.

Also bandwidth as a metric to aim for seems like a bad choice for IoT to me.

Re: Z-Wave Alliance Announces Z-Wave Source Code Project Now Open and Available

#117
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you had some non-zwave+ devices or you were using a lot of s0 encryption. Both are known to slow down the network. Like everything it’s gotten better over time. The 700 series stuff is pretty quick.

I was an early adopter for sure. This was back in 2016ish when I installed all of the devices. All of the devices were Z-Wave+ (specifically bought for that) but many of them did not support the newer encryption, and it ended up being a mixed network of devices for sure. Only the last few devices I bought supported the new encryption standard that was being rolled out at the time. I ended up getting a new Z-Wave hub…

Ok yeah I only have 16 devices but I have 188 entities - I haven’t had any issues with sensors except with a power mains reader that didn’t support zwave+. After I removed that everything has been great. I also have a Zigbee network of about the same size which has also been pretty solid. One tip I didn’t know about at first is that you should have your transceiver plugged in to a usb extension cord and not directly into your pi/whatever.

Re: Z-Wave Alliance Announces Z-Wave Source Code Project Now Open and Available

#118
post #39
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some years ago when I was getting into this it looked to me like Z-Wave was winning. Did something happen?

The new Thread protocol (part of Matter) is basically Zigbee on steroids which gets it up to parity with Z-wave. The reason to choose Z-wave over Thread is that Z-wave works now and has many devices available to buy, while Thread works in theory and the devices are very few in number. Thread devices are due out in force next year. So this actually is perfect timing for Z-wave to make this move now, right as the first…

> Zigbee on steroids

It's definitely not as proprietary, which is probably relevant to a lot of potential implementers. There's close to no public information about Zigbee implementations while Google invites people to implement Thread through OpenThread.

Thread likely has more features with some pretty fully featured networking support, which some may consider positive, but some negative.

Re: Z-Wave Alliance Announces Z-Wave Source Code Project Now Open and Available

#119
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My prediction is everything will ship with a "matter" icon on it, but support will only be vertical silo, maybe even worse than things are now. There's already available evidence that contradicts that prediction. Eve[1] is rolling out a firmware update for Matter support that makes their devices usable across all Matter supported platforms. There are some features that aren't yet available at the Matter level so th…

Why wouldn't there be a race to the bottom as soon as some company finds a way to stamp out cheap white label components?

Agree with you, the first company to defect from interop will have a higher financial report then mgmt will demand engineering implement prevention-of-interop features or at least ignore the issue.

Re: Z-Wave Alliance Announces Z-Wave Source Code Project Now Open and Available

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If security is unimportant, sure. Insteon hardware has been around for three decades, but nobody in their right mind would be using network hardware from back then. Sure to hardware but we’re all still using IP protocols. Countless companies have risen and fallen and that hasn’t changed. Networking equipment if kept LAN only should still work fine after 3 decades. > which is just a COM port on my PC. The company's…

Most people aren't equipped to ensure their IP devices can only talk to other LAN devices (I am, my cameras live on a VLAN that can't route to the web). Combine IP capability with the possibility for software updates, and you have botnet fuel. It's why IP cameras are a leading source of botnet participants: Long-lasting IP hardware often managed by users without VLAN segmentation.

I agree that segmenting VLANs and stuff aren’t accessible to average people, but there are accessible alternatives. I recently upgraded to Google WiFi pucks after babysitting a ubiquiti installation for almost half a decade, and you can “disable internet” on devices without disabling LAN. You’d have to trust the device to be friendly on the LAN but it’s good balance for consumers. After Eufys whole security meltdown I updated a bunch of IOT junk to lose internet access. I saw a lot of tech site’s recommend this, and it’s definitely “easy enough for the parents to do”.
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