Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

z-wavealliance.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 125 posts

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

#31

Post by horsawlarway »

synergy20 wrote: post #7
hedora wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article links to this: > The goal of the source code project is to provide a rich development environment containing relevant source code and sample applications under BSD 3 License. The Z-Wave source code project will enable members to contribute code to the project under the supervision of the new OS Work Group (OSWG). Which doesn't clarify at all. Is OS "open source" or "operating system", or something? Is the…

z-wave is kind of competing with zigbee for low power mid-range wireless standard for smart home or smart building since like 20 years ago? then we have low power bluetooth and low-power wifi joined the party. z-wave was proprietary which did not help its deployments, but still I recall it was the most deployed low power wireless devices for IoT. I worked on zigbee and never liked it. I wish z-wave was more open back…

Personally - I got kinda the other feel. Seems like Z-Wave is slowly dying in favor of zigbee devices.

I can't really even find z-wave bulbs right now. And basically any device I might want (curtains, alarms, sensors, lights, motors, thermostats, etc) comes in a zigbee form.

I agree that Z-Wave did the better standards enforcement, but Zigbee went with the age old route to success: manage to be cheaper.

Throw in that the two most common automation situations tend to be either:

1. Upstream cloud service

2. Local management engine (ex: HomeAssistant, OpenHab, etc)

And it just doesn't really matter all that much how compatible devices are in terms of point to point control. I can just route the message through HA and take the action I want - mixing and matching as needed.

Plus - Alexa pro ships a directly integrated zigbee hub now, which got a lot of devices moving that direction, and Ikea makes some great super cheap zigbee devices.

Bluetooth and Wifi devices are the worst of both worlds, in my opinion. Wifi usually needs integration with an upstream service which is a non-starter for me, and bluetooth is just really limited on total device count. Both also eat through a lot of power compared to z-wave/zigbee.

It's pretty cool that several recent zigbee switches are completely battery/wire free. They literally use the energy you expend to push to the button to send the signal.

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

#32

Post by darkhelmet »

ksec wrote: post #22

What is Z-Wave. Are there any competing IEEE 802 standards?

First, there was X10. There was appetite for something better. There were several candidate replacements, including:

* UPB - Universal Powerline Bus (powerline)

* Insteon (powerline + wireless)

* Z-Wave (wireless)

* Zigbee (wireless)

Of these, Zigbee seems to be in the best position these days.

Z-Wave is/was a closed system - you had to get compatibility testing/certification in order to sell products using the tech. It's fairly lightweight, reliable, and well respected by users.

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

#33

Post by Jochim »

sigspec wrote: post #25
culi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as someone out of the loop on IoT standards in general, are there any central orgs pushing these standards? Are open standards winning at least?

"Matter" has basically everyone: https://csa-iot.org/members/

You've got to love a $7k/year fee for the privilege of paying $3k per product to say you support their standard.

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

#34

Post by rlpb »

slimginz wrote: post #5

Now that Matter and Thread are finally starting to roll out, is there really any good reason for new products to still use Z-Wave? Or am I just crazy to see this as Z-Wave trying to continue a format war (first started with Zigbee) that they're almost certainly going to lose?

AIUI, Z-Wave means interoperability at device level, without even a controller or a compatibility shim, across a variety of manufacturers. Niche devices can exist because it's easy for a niche manufacturer to integrate. And if my Internet connection is down, or even the controller is down, the system still functions with graceful degradation only.

With Zigbee, AIUI you get a mostly closed system locked in to whichever Zigbee vendor you chose. Interoperability only occurs at a higher level in a much more error-prone and lowest common denominator fashion.

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

#35

Post by cherioo »

One thing i have read but not seen brought up here yet is that zwave has so far only have one hardware soc vendor (silicon labs). This would seem like how they have been able to enforce certification compliance. And it’s probably leads to higher cost (hardware and software?) and thus lower adoption.

This open source project reportedly will start allowing more chip vendor as well, so it will be interesting how that affects the ecosystem.

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

#36

Post by synergy20 »

horsawlarway wrote: post #31
synergy20 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

z-wave is kind of competing with zigbee for low power mid-range wireless standard for smart home or smart building since like 20 years ago? then we have low power bluetooth and low-power wifi joined the party. z-wave was proprietary which did not help its deployments, but still I recall it was the most deployed low power wireless devices for IoT. I worked on zigbee and never liked it. I wish z-wave was more open back…

Personally - I got kinda the other feel. Seems like Z-Wave is slowly dying in favor of zigbee devices. I can't really even find z-wave bulbs right now. And basically any device I might want (curtains, alarms, sensors, lights, motors, thermostats, etc) comes in a zigbee form. I agree that Z-Wave did the better standards enforcement, but Zigbee went with the age old route to success: manage to be cheaper. Throw in that…

that's new to me, did not track this field for a few years. zigbee protocol was too complex in the past for me on resource restricted devices, while zwave is so much light-weight, then that's just the technical side. maybe that's why z-wave now opens up, it's forced to do so or it dies.

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

#37

Post by [deleted] »

ars wrote: post #30
Izkata wrote: 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?

Z-Wave is definitely the better protocol (vs Zigbee), but Matter is partially based on Zigbee so everyone expects Z-Wave to lose. I don't agree, I think Z-wave will work with Matter using bridging.

[deleted]

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

#38

Post by ocdtrekkie »

slimginz wrote: post #5

Now that Matter and Thread are finally starting to roll out, is there really any good reason for new products to still use Z-Wave? Or am I just crazy to see this as Z-Wave trying to continue a format war (first started with Zigbee) that they're almost certainly going to lose?

Z-Wave is a better technology. I want home automation hardware to be simple, reliable, and not Internet connected.

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

#39

Post by Lendal »

Izkata wrote: post #27
solarkraft wrote: post #23

Sounds like a last resort for popularity. The market for IoT RF standards is consolidating and Z-Wave doesn't seem to be among the winners.

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 wave of Thread devices are approaching.

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

#40

Post by Dayshine »

daenney wrote: post #19
VLM wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firmware for Matter is going to be enormous, zwave is a lot simpler. Lots of pessimism in the market about the interoperability of Matter. No mfgr is going to be motivated to encourage their customers to interoperate with a competitors gadget. 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. Thread is basically a full wifi-…

> 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?
Post reply on HN