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

z-wavealliance.org

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

#61

Post by thewataccount »

X-Istence wrote: post #53
vardump wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any reasoning why? My home automation is 95%+ Zigbee, and I don't see any issues. Mesh networking works very nicely, reaching far corners of the house.

Z-Wave's mesh networking was a giant pain to get functioning correctly, and good luck if devices were multiple hops away... things would just randomly fall off the network. With Zigbee (IKEA TRADFRI and Philips Hue) I haven' had any of those issues, nor with any of my Thread devices.

I have nordic dev chips, esp8266's, esp32's, etc.

I have some zigbee stuff with HA, and I have made some custom sensors with esphome. I'd like to try some thread stuff.

How are you currently using thread/what are you using it with? Do you have any recommendations for how to get started with it now - I've been rather confused as it feels like its in limbo right now.

How do you like it compared to zigbee and wifi?

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

#62

Post by Jochim »

vardump wrote: post #47
ars wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Any reasoning why? My home automation is 95%+ Zigbee, and I don't see any issues. Mesh networking works very nicely, reaching far corners of the house.

AFAIK the majority of Zigbee products only act as end device nodes and don't act as routers. So they won't actually be doing anything to extend the mesh.

The main benefits of ZWave over Zigbee is superior penetration, improved interoperability, and reduced interference with WiFi devices.

One of the biggest issues with Zigbee is vendors selling devices that only work with their gateway. As a consumer it sucks because it's rare for a single vendor to excel or even offer devices in every product category.

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

#63

Post by wesapien »

X-Istence wrote: post #52

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…

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

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

#64

Post by burnte »

wesapien wrote: post #63
X-Istence wrote: post #52

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…

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

The problem isn't the network, it's the number of devices.

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

#65

Post by vardump »

Jochim wrote: post #62
vardump wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any reasoning why? My home automation is 95%+ Zigbee, and I don't see any issues. Mesh networking works very nicely, reaching far corners of the house.

AFAIK the majority of Zigbee products only act as end device nodes and don't act as routers. So they won't actually be doing anything to extend the mesh. The main benefits of ZWave over Zigbee is superior penetration, improved interoperability, and reduced interference with WiFi devices. One of the biggest issues with Zigbee is vendors selling devices that only work with their gateway. As a consumer it sucks because…

Majority (80%+) of my Zigbee devices act as routers, light bulbs, sockets, switches, etc. Only sensors and controllers are end device nodes.

> One of the biggest issues with Zigbee is vendors selling devices that only work with their gateway.

Sold as such, but work as generic devices just fine, no issues. You just need a Zigbee dongle and ZHA, Zigbee2MQTT or deCONZ.

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

#66

Post by bioemerl »

horsawlarway wrote: post #57
bioemerl wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience both are dying in favor of iot/wifi stuff. Zwave is still strong in the commercial space ZigBee is strong in the consumer space, especially light bulbs that commercial systems do not want to use. I'm thinking it'll be longer before zwave dies for real vs zigbee, but it will only live on the back of the big slow commercial entities that back it.

I don't really see Zigbee dying right now. Hell - I used it before home automation was really a thing back in college almost 15 years ago now, and it's going strong today. Hue has always been all-in on Zigbee. (incl the new 3.0 standard - https://developers.meethue.com/zigbee-3-0-support-in-hue-eco... ) Ikea has gone basically all-in on Zigbee ( https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ikea-smart-home-kit-reviewed... ) Amazon…

It's a very different experience if you go to Walmart and try to find smart devices.

ZigBee devices are still available, but companies I've seen that used to have them almost exclusively swapped to WiFi over time.

Hue is still ZigBee for example, but the old generic bulbs at home Depot? Gone. Liquidated. Nobody understands smart hubs. Everyone understands their app.

Bulbs, plugs, sockets, even thermostats. What do you think is the ratio of nest thermostats vs zigbee?

Big business buys thermostats from big retailers who sell in batches of hundreds. My dad's home, built a year or two ago, is wired up with zwave.

You don't see bulbs because the companies who set up zwave almost exclusively stick the switches in the wall and leave the lights dumb. Built to work for decades without configuration sort of thing.

My thinking is that the wifi stuff is going to eat ZigBees lunch, although your point about battery life is a very good one.

Zwave, in the space it's in, seems more durable to me. One day lights will go out and replaced with wifi bulbs that everyone can use, but the companies using zwave are way more picky and will not want to go wifi.

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

#67

Post by philsnow »

netr0ute wrote: post #28
ksec wrote: post #22

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

Z-wave uses lower frequencies compared to something like Matter so it you can use a lower power or get more range. One competing 802 standard is 802.11ah, or WiFi HaLoW which barely exists right now but should be the best thing available.

Using lower frequencies also means you're not stepping on the 2.4GHz band, so you won't have interference from wifi or microwaves or whatever else.

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

#68

Post by dljsjr »

wesapien wrote: post #63
X-Istence wrote: post #52

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…

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.

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

#69

Post by resonanttoe »

wesapien wrote: post #63
X-Istence wrote: post #52

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…

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

Zwave talks on 800-900MhZ and doesn't share medium with ethernet frames, so there isn't a concept of VLANs. Each Device meshes with anything and everything in its immediate broadcast range to provide some elasticity to the network. I can imagine at some high point of devices that the medium could become saturated

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

#70

Post by WXLCKNO »

montjoy wrote: post #58
X-Istence wrote: post #52

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…

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.

Encryption was insanely slow when I first tried it on my Inovelli Red Series switches. Without encryption it was an instant (feeling) response time.
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