Razberry - Z-Wave.ME or Zwave JS - Pros / Cons

Configuration Z-Wave
1

After 6? years I’m finally doing a complete fresh install, (Original Zwave is depreciated and has been removed … I have been putting off migrating for some time)

Current system - RPi 3 B with a Razberry chip running with hass. ~17 zwave devices. I’ve got my system at version 2022.3.6, the newer versions remove the old zwave integration.

I am now faced with a choice…

Options

  1. Use Razberry chip on a new RPi4 and configure hass / zwave via Zwave JS
  2. Use a spare RPi3 B+ with the Razberry chip, install Zway-Server. Install hass on the RPi4. Use the Z-Wave.Me integration (connects to a user on the Zway server over the network).

Questions,

  1. Has anyone experienced both and do you have a preference? If so why?
  2. I have (just for fun) set it up as option 2 as a test (adding one device), the UI and expert settings of the Zway-server is nice, however I’m not a fan of the way to change configuration parameters of Zwave devices, nor am I a fan of the need to manually name each entity (it seems it is not inherited from the node name)
  3. Have you seen any errors, delays, missing data etc with using the Z-wave.me integration?
  4. Segregating the Zwave system from the home assistant instance / RPi beneficial? For data flow I prefer this, but it’s probably not necessary.

Any insight / experience would be appreciated.

1 Like
2

What did you end up with?

3

I tried both, however I found the entity management via Z-wave.me not as easy as the management via Zwave JS and these are the home assistant entities… I have not had any issues with Zwave JS, easy to make config changes to devices and I saved running a spare RPi.

If you have a Zwave.me chip, and you need to update the firmware / change the country region / frequency it operates, you can ONLY do this via using the Z-wave.me web interface, so you must install that on a RPI first, upgrade firmware, select your frequency, and then you can use the Zwave.me on a hass instance. I guess if you used supervisor and installed Zway manually on your own RPI OS you could have Home assistant on the same PI, but I use HASS.IO (or whatever it’s called now)

1 Like