What is Z-Wave?

If you have been buying an advanced smart home kit, you may have noticed the Z-Wave logo on many boxes of connected devices.

In this article, you will learn about:

What is Z-Wave?
What is Z-Wave Plus?
How does Z-Wave work?
What is Z-Wave LR?
Which devices support Z-Wave?
Z-Wave: Should you pay attention?
Z-Wave hub and application

Etc…

What is Z-Wave?

Z-Wave is a wireless networking specification led by the Danish company Zensys. Although the Z-wave Alliance (Z-wave Alliance) is not as powerful as the ZigBee Alliance, the members of the Z-wave Alliance already have current products in the smart home field. The alliance already has more than 160 internationally renowned companies, covering almost all countries and regions around the world.

Z-Wave, like Zigbee, is a wireless protocol that essentially focuses on connections in smart homes.

With the rapid development of smart homes, more and more connected devices are added to people’s houses. Many of these devices (such as smart sensors, smart bulbs, smart heating controllers, smart locks, smart sockets, etc.) support mutual communication based on the Z-Wave standard protocol.

In fact, there are more than 100 million Z-Wave devices in smart homes worldwide, and there are more than 3,000 Z-Wave-enabled devices to choose from.

Compared with Wi-Fi, Z-Wave has much lower power consumption, but the range is much larger than Bluetooth. Z-Wave uses low-energy radio waves to communicate between devices.

What is Z-Wave Plus?

You may have seen Z-Wave Plus used in the latest smart home devices. In essence, this is a major upgrade to the platform, which was put into use a few years ago…

Z-Wave Plus, also known as Z-Wave 500 series, adopts the technology introduced as early as 2004, and increases the range, prolongs the battery life, OTA upgrade, and additional RF channels.

If you buy a Z-Wave product now, it is likely to be Z-Wave Plus.

The Z-Wave Plus V2 certification program is the latest version, which includes an enhanced S2 security framework and SmartStart. SmartStart is a setting function that can achieve true plug-and-play functionality for consumers’ smart homes.

How does Z-Wave work?

Z-Wave can work in the 800-900MHz radio frequency range, but the point you may need to care about is that unlike Zigbee, which works at 2.4GHz (the main frequency of Wi-Fi), Z-Wave-Wave does not actually Did not suffer any major interference issues.

The actual frequency at which the Z-Wave device operates depends on the country/region where the device is used. For example, the United States uses 908.40, 908.42, and 916 MHz; while the United Kingdom and Europe use 868.40, 868.42, and 869.85 MHz. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that you are buying a Z-Wave device specific to your area.

Unlike Wi-Fi, in Wi-Fi, devices must be connected to a central hub (usually a router or other access point), and Z-Wave devices are all linked together to form a mesh network.

The central smart home hub you use to manage Z-Wave devices can indeed be connected to the Internet, but the devices themselves (such as sensors, light bulbs, etc.) do not have Wi-Fi at all. They only use Z-Wave connections to make calls to the hub, and the connection is not necessary Is direct; a mesh network means that the signal can go directly from the device to the device.

However, not all Z-Wave devices can relay signals, and some devices can only send their own signals. This is why Z-Wave repeaters are popular. Essentially, it is an “always-on” device powered by the main power source, such as a smart socket, which can receive and send signals from another node to the hub.

What is Z-Wave LR?

Z-Wave Long Range may make repeaters history. Z-Wave LR was released in September 2020. Compared with the conventional Z-Wave signal, its wireless range is expected to be expanded to 4 times.

On a standard Z-Wave mesh network, you can have up to 232 nodes, that is, connect 232 devices. Although it is far from the more than 65,000 nodes provided on Zigbee, we think it is still sufficient for all Z-Wave smart home kits.

Z-Wave LR will expand it to more than 2,000 nodes on the network, so it is moving in the right direction.

The standard Z-Wave has a point-to-point transmission distance of 100m (the LR is 400m) and works at such low power that even some sensors can be used for 10 years with only a button battery.

Z-Wave SoC (System on Chip) can also be installed in furniture and difficult-to-reach places such as walls to make the mesh network more powerful. The good news is that Z-Wave is fully backward compatible, so the new Long Range devices will be able to be compatible with past and future devices.

Known as the most secure smart device ecosystem on the global market, Z-Wave uses the same AES-128 symmetric encryption as Zigbee. Although this does not completely prevent hacker attacks, most smart home vulnerabilities come from the login process on the device software, not their connection.

Which devices support Z-Wave?

A big advantage of Z-Wave is that its devices can be fully interoperable. All Z-Wave devices can be used with other Z-Wave devices without exception-this depends on the ownership and maintenance of the Z-Wave Alliance by private organizations.

Sigma Designs acquired Z-Wave from Zensys in 2009. Silicon Labs recently acquired the company at a high price of US$240 million and is responsible for the software and hardware of Z-Wave-certified equipment.

The Z-Wave Alliance now has more than 700 members and more than 3,000 certified products of these brands worldwide.

Today, the number of products supporting Z-Wave has exceeded 100 million units. Covers 70% of the smart home market.

Z-Wave: Should you pay attention?

The good thing about Z-Wave is that while there is no doubt that it will make your smart home setup more seamless, you actually don’t need to do anything to make the most of it. Z-Wave devices will discover each other in your house to create a more powerful mesh network. If you want to develop further by using the above apps or hubs to link different brand kits, it’s up to you.

The rise of well-known smart assistants built into smart speakers (such as Amazon Echo or Google Home) also means that you don’t have to care too much about the protocol that the smart device is running. Making all devices run with the same protocol will bring some benefits. For example, one application solves all problems, but the reality is extremely unlikely, especially considering that the power of Z-Wave is so low… For HD on security cameras Video is not suitable.

Therefore, it is a good idea to look for the Z-Wave Certified label on the box, but there are always other ways to make your connection kit work on different platforms.

Z-Wave hub and application

Although the Z-Wave suite can communicate with each other over the network, many of the systems built into it are still very independent and have their own applications and hubs. However, there are plenty of excellent Z-Wave options (including hardware and software) that can make everything run under one roof.

In terms of hardware center, Wink 2 and Samsung SmartThings can not only combine all your Z-Wave devices but are also compatible with Zigbee. They do a good job, so they can also provide some cross-platform automation options.

For a specific Z-Wave hub, check out Aeon Labs Aeotec Z-Wave Z-Stick (just plug it into the USB port of your PC) or VERA Edge.

Due to the openness of Z-Wave, many brands that use Z-Wave suites have excellent applications. These applications can not only control their own devices but also control third-party Z-Wave technology. Look at well-known companies such as Wink, Samsung, Insteon, and Abode, and also consider openHAB, Homey, Home Assistant Companion, and Imperihome.