We have a BIG announcement to share with you all! Join us on YouTube, August 13th @ 12:00PM Pacific / 3:00PM Eastern / 21:00 CEST, to see why Z-Wave isnāt dead. 
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Let me guess, the announcement of the long awaited Nabu Casa Z-Wave dongle?
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Maaaayyyyyyybeeeeeeeeeee 
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That generally means that it is lol, Iāll probably end up getting one just to have it for options.
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Yeah, several Open Home Foundation and Nabu Casa members have in recent months kept dropping many not-so-suble hints that an upcoming official Home Assistent branded Z-Wave Controller radio adapter (USB dongle based on Z-Wave 800 series radio chip and with an external antenna) will be announced soon, so suspect that a the release date for it that will probably be officially announced on the blog very soon, but if it will be available for purchase at the date of the annoucement is a different question.
FYI, they been hinted about this for what feels like two years but the fact that they are working on a prototype of a Z-Wave Controller USB radio adapter dongle that will have an external antenna was first made clear more than a year ago in the āZWave is not deadā blog post here ā Z-Wave is not dead - Home Assistant
The last hint about that official Z-Wave Controller USB radio dongle was in the Zooz and the Shelly announcements in the last couple of weeks ago, see here:
Quote: āWatch this space for a not-so-secret Home Assistant Z-Wave hardware announcement coming your wayā
Quote: āSo, all you need is a Z-Wave adapter to use alongside these devices. If you havenāt purchased one yet, you might want to wait before hitting that buy button 
.ā
They had previously also mentioned a little more about it during the last State of the Open Home:
So guess they mean in that blog post about Shelly is that if you were considering buying a Z-Wave Controller USB adapter from a other manufacturer then maybe hold of that purchade until the announcement has been made so you know the release date for when it will be available in stores. Though you will be able to migrate if you are already using Z-Wave JS with a different not-too-old Z-Wave Controller USB adapter that has new enough firmware.
Anyway, Paulus has very strongly hinted verbaly several times duing the last few Home Assistent release party videos that their Z-Wave Controller adapter will be available āsoonā so one could guess that it will be in stock and available for sale when it is announced (as the Home Assistant Green and SkyConnect was).
I suspect that they have been holding of on the release until the software stack matured for backup and restore for migrations, while also waiting for Z-Wave Long Range in Europe to be ratified (which I understand that is now has).
There has also been a more recent new rumour and speculations now about additional new hardware because in the latest video Paulus also hinted that there will not only be a Z-Wave Controller USB radio dongle but there will maybe be another hardware announced as well then, so my guess there is that they will also announcing a optional matching ESPHome USB-to-Serial and Serial-over-IP combination network adapter which is modular so that can allow users to convert the Z-Wave Controller USB radio dongle into a network connected radio adapter which would enable you to place it anywhere on your local LAN (though maybe not anywhere if it is not PoE powered and only uses Ethernet instead of WiFi.) At least I think those are realistic guesses based on the related āUSB Hostā and āUSB UARTā features that was recently added to ESPHome which in theory could enable such a product ā ESPHome 2025.6.0 - 18th June 2025 ā ESPHome
PS: ZBT-1 and ZWA-2 are still terrible product names IMHO, as I think they should be called something like āHome Assistant Zigbee or Thread USB radio adapterā and āHome Assistant Z-Wave 800 USB radio adapterā or alternativly just call them by some color and version like their hub appiances (e.g. Home Assistant Purple USB radio dongle).
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By the way, I hope that Nabu Casa will also follow this new hardware design recipie to also make a better Zigbee Coordinator radio adapter with with a great best-in-class external antenna as well as the old SkyConnect design could also really do with a updated hardware design so that it can replace the current Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1 (previously known as Home Assistant SkyConnect), maybe then it could become the worlds best option for users of the native ZHA integration (Home Assistantās built-in Zigbee Gateway application), which it is far away from being today. While the ZBT-1 might be easiest option to get started with it and easy firmware updates is not the ābest optionā today as it claims to be:
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The biggest thing we run into when naming things is trademark issues. Thatās why a lot of companies have shifted to using alphanumerical formatting, actually.
Believe me, weād love to name them something cooler. 
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I hope that guess is correct. It would be great to be able to (more easily) run HA in my small proxmox cluster and have (easier) access to a remote Zwave dongleā¦
Yes, I know it can be done today, Iām not saying it canāt be, but Iām hoping for an even easier/lighter weight way of doing it and the esphome remote route might be it.
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FYI, TubeZB already offers Z-Wave Controller networked radio semi-DIY hardware kits based on ESPHome (with custom Serial-over-IP server components), and one of his kit is even a Z-Wave and Zigbee dual/combo radios adapter solution, (made by community member @tube0013), so recommend also check them out here:
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Smlight has a Ethernet Z-Wave controller too, with Zigbee as second radio
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I didnāt know about either of those. Thanks!
Iāll still wait to see what is announced on 8/13 before buying anything though. 
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I believe the SMLightās Z-Wave Ethernet adapter you refer to is at this stage only a pre-announced protoype that is not available for sale yet(?). Their webpage for it only says that they are sending hardware sampels to testers for evaluation. (Presumable they will they also send preview hardware to reviewers and influensers). Quote:
SLZB-MRW10 ā Multiprotocol Smart Home Adapter (Testing Samples)
Call for Testers
We are currently distributing SLZB-MRW10 units for testing purposes. These devices have successfully completed internal testing and demonstrate stable performance across all supported networks, including Zigbee, Thread/Matter, Wi-Fi, and Z-Wave (non-certified).
After this testing phase, we plan to apply for full Z-Wave certification.
These adapters are distributed to testers strictly for evaluation and testing only. The current price reflects testing program participation, and the expected retail price (RRP) is about $75.
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I have one in my closet. No time to install yet.
Love your speculation and really hoping you are right. Given the image, I think youāve hit the nail on the head ā it definitely looks like a stand-alone device.
I have an Aeotec Gen5 stick that is plugged into a RaspberryPi running ZwaveJS. This allows me to currently have a āremoteā Zwave controller. It would be awesome if this was PoE as it would simplify the design.
My biggest wish is for a simple way to migrate from my existing setup to the new one. Will be tuning in on Aug. 13th for the stream.
Way to go Nabu!
Such an modular ESPHome based device could obviously also be optionally used with a Zigbee Coordinator USB radio dongle too as both āUSB Hostā and āUSB UARTā features as well as a Serial-over-IP server all running in ESPHome firmware are more or less generic components.
now that is going to be the deal breakerā¦ imagine our carefully created devices go awol and having to include them all allover, renaming hundreds and hundreds of entitiesā¦
Not even thinking about the energy sensors that are in the DB, risking those to be reset and break the history completely (its what happened on my Zwave devices after updating their firmware last week)
My guess is they have cared for that, and Ive seen several PRās concerning that migration.
I havent seen users post about this, but yes, there you have it
I wont be the first to try though, and Ill await success reportsā¦
Maybe Iām more brave (read foolish and crazy). Iāll happily be an early adopter on this one!
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haha, ok, keep us posted
Maybe something like this, only with Zigbee and Z-Wave, stable and high performance, with POE:
https://z-wave.me/products/z-station/#slide-3
Same. I have done multiple controller swaps in zwave jsā¦ No fear here.
Maybe,ā¦ And hopefully with non-proprietary firmware like the z-station has. Oh and not end of life/manufacturing like the z-station (since they got bought out by Trident IoT Z-Wave.Me future - forum )ā¦