expiredEragorn | Staff posted Jan 14, 2025 03:02 AM
Item 1 of 4
Item 1 of 4
expiredEragorn | Staff posted Jan 14, 2025 03:02 AM
The Smartest House Home Automation: Toggle Dimmer $20, Smart Plug $16, Q Sensor
& More + Free Shipping on $99+$22
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In the US it uses 908.42 or 916 MHz and in Europe it uses 868.42 MHz. Generally speaking that means it is less likely to get interfered with by all of your microwaves, wifi devices, and airtags.
Personally I have found the Z-Wave devices in my home inside a dense neighborhood to be more reliable but most devices that are Zigbee work fine as well. All in I have 57 z-wave devices on my network and rarely have issues with them and I have 17 Zigbee devices which are generally fine but I previously had some ultra cheap battery sensors that were flaky. I only have 3 bluetooth switchbot devices, about 3 wifi smart plugs, and 1 wifi ecobee because those tend to be the most problematic for me when scaled out.
If you plan on having a lot of smart devices you will very likely want to avoid Wifi devices for low bandwidth devices like smart switches and basic motion or temperature sensors so you can save the bandwidth and limited number of connections for devices like security cameras, laptops, tvs, speakers, and other such things.
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If you have a really large space or multiple levels separated by concrete or any of the other conditions where WiFi can struggle, Z-Wave might make sense.
However, it's quickly being outpaced by Matter, both in performance and variety of devices that support it.
Matter operates on WiFi, but isn't constrained by your router or a cloud service. Everything runs locally and many devices can act as range extenders. It's also way cheaper to implement than RF protocols like Z-Wave.
But, if you have a Home Assistant server or Hubitat, you can always mix and match protocols.
just more WiFi crap with a standard thats being loosely enforced. it'll most likely suffer the same fate as poor ZigBee devices.
cheaper to implement, yup, just like all the other WiFi crap out there all over Amazon/eBay.
I love the idea of switching to matter, and have provisioned a strong backing of thread border routers to be ready, but haven't seen enough devices yet to warrant switching from my z Wave devices. Or even to stop buying new z Wave devices
Not to mention the fact that they were able to integrate hub support into devices that predated it, such as the Google Home Mini Gen 1.
And technically, the device doesn't even need to have Matter firmware if you run HA with Matterbridge.
Fully agree. the battery life on this sensor, the 11, is absolute garbage, and it now uses TWO batteries.
Plugged in via microUSB (UGH), and it's far more reliable.
The older sensor (square one) was by far 10x better and more reliable (I have 4 of those still going.)
just more WiFi crap with a standard thats being loosely enforced. it'll most likely suffer the same fate as poor ZigBee devices.
cheaper to implement, yup, just like all the other WiFi crap out there all over Amazon/eBay.
The benefit is there is no "standard" of conformity like many of these other locked down ecosystems that use WiFi. There's no cloud requirement and implementation is open source, so there's no obsolescence.
Moreover, you're being hyperbolic if your only misinformed gripe is that it "runs on WiFi". The protocol is agnostic and supports wired backhaul.
Zigbee failed because licensing it is expensive, which made it difficult for a variety of devices to be made affordably. On top of that, it requires a dedicated hub and repeaters. Remind me what Z-Wave requires, again?
Go pick up an ESP32 module and then get back to me.
The benefit is there is no "standard" of conformity like many of these other locked down ecosystems that use WiFi. There's no cloud requirement and implementation is open source, so there's no obsolescence.
Moreover, you're being hyperbolic if your only misinformed gripe is that it "runs on WiFi". The protocol is agnostic and supports wired backhaul.
Zigbee failed because licensing it is expensive, which made it difficult for a variety of devices to be made affordably. On top of that, it requires a dedicated hub and repeaters. Remind me what Z-Wave requires, again?
Go pick up an ESP32 module and then get back to me.
Over wifi is no go if you have a lot of devices.
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The benefit is there is no "standard" of conformity like many of these other locked down ecosystems that use WiFi. There's no cloud requirement and implementation is open source, so there's no obsolescence.
Moreover, you're being hyperbolic if your only misinformed gripe is that it "runs on WiFi". The protocol is agnostic and supports wired backhaul.
Zigbee failed because licensing it is expensive, which made it difficult for a variety of devices to be made affordably. On top of that, it requires a dedicated hub and repeaters. Remind me what Z-Wave requires, again?
Go pick up an ESP32 module and then get back to me.
"open source" isn't the selling point you think it is... just means it'll be a mess of people thinking they're smarter than they actually are, just like all the bastardized Linux branches.
Zigbee failed because of control, had nothing to do with cost... Zigbee radios are far cheaper, hence the dirt cheap Zigbee devices that are still widely available. it was adherence to the standard and allowing trash companies to flood the market with devices that didn't follow the standard and made a mess of any mesh.
I have a bunch of ESP8266 devices for specific tasks... great little devices. NodeMCU made life easy, then once you move to ESPHome it makes Home Assistant integration dead simple. these are hardly devices i'd deploy to a customer, but they're great for little home projects.
it is nice when vendors use ESP devices though, like the Emporia Vue... pop it open, solder a few wires, flash the device with ESPHome and you a local full featured home power meter with tons of CTs.
The smart plugs have also been great for me. Though one thing to consider is using the default config settings for they can be rather chatty because of the high rate of power reporting.
Overall Zooz is easily the best z-wave manufacturer at least in the US. They have the most variety of different types of z-wave products and they've all been consistent for me, and their support has been super helpful too.
You've been doing this for years now, it's time to seek help.
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You've been doing this for years now, it's time to seek help.
I have eaten a bagel four times in the past few years as well.
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