I have multiple aeotec recessed door sensors. three of them are on doors which are opened multiple times throughout the day (office, door to basement, master bedroom). The batteries for me last 4-5 months. This wasn’t always the case before I expanded my zwave network with more devices that act as routers (mainly enbrighten zwave outlets). Currently all of the door sensors are less than 10 feet away from multiple z wave devices that act as routers. Prior to this battery life was maybe 6 weeks. I would suggest adding in some mains powered devices closer to these doors.
I am very excited to hear that zwave in home assistant will be getting even better.
Z wave is my preferred protocol for devices. I don’t think it is dead, but I am concerned about the fact that there doesn’t seem to be nearly enough new devices coming out - especially compared to zigbee/wifi. It also doesn’t help that zigbee/wifi devices are abundant. Search for smart plug on amazon and the majority of the results are zigbee/wifi. People new to HA or any smart home platform will likely go that route and likely continue to do so. I have to actively search specifically for zwave devices if I want to get something new.
My current setup is zwavejs ui and I have 56 devices, I also have 64 devices using ZHA, 2 zigbee devices on zigbee2mqtt (they werent supported in zha when they came out), and lutron caseta (49 devices). In addition I have multiple devices controlled via wifi (esphome, xiaomi air purifiers, etc). Of those protocols, wifi is the least reliable due to disconnects from the network. I only have 55 devices on my home network (mesh wifi with 4 nodes + router) and a large percentage of them are hard wired. As far as matter/thread…I don’t see it being reliable or all that useful to be honest. I think its biggest audience is going to be maybe for the average consumer who only has a few devices and won’t ever get into home automation beyond google/alexa/homekit. It’s also limited in that it relies on wifi and it doesn’t take many devices to make the average consumers wifi network overloaded. My zwave/zigbee/caseta all are reliable, near instantaneous in responsiveness, and haven’t been affected by the frequent power outages we get in my neighborhood (at least once a month). Z wave is my preferred because it is fast, reliable, and secure. I do agree that devices are somewhat more expensive than zigbee, but I think the build quality is better.
I had issues with zwave initially after I migrated what were then a small number of devices over from smartthings. I had been using an aeotec 7 series stick and had frequent dead nodes. I eventually got fed up and purchased a 5th gen aeotec stick and a zooz 800 series stick. Once I read about the issues with the 800 series, I went with the 5th gen aeotec and have never had an issue. The 800 series stick has never even been plugged in - maybe someday. Before I switched to the 5th gen stick I also expanded my zwave network with more mains powered devices. Most of these are ge/enbrighten outlets and some switches. I did this with the intent of creating a good network. So a lot of the outlets/switches I am not even using the zwave actively. A good example of this are the lights in the bathroom on my ground floor, pantry, laundry room, 3 walk-in closets. All have ge/enbrighten z wave motion activated light switches. I don’t really ever control them via z wave. I have alternated with jasco zigbee outlets as well so that my zigbee network also has a solid backbone of mains powered devices. There isn’t a room in my house that doesn’t have one or more z wave mains powered devices. Anyone with zwave reliability issues (or zigbee as well) likely needs to add more mains powered devices.
My biggest annoyance with zwave has been that some devices just don’t work (and I don’t mean due to lack of signal). GE/enbrighten/jasco is the most reliable (outlets and switches), aeotec except for one specific product, zooz not so great. And this unreliability is product specific. A good example is at christmas I use outdoor z wave plugs for lights. I had some from minoston and evalogik. Last winter I purchased 2 aeotec ones, 2 zooz zen14’s, as well as 2 zooz zen20 power strips. No issues pairing, but they started showing up as dead - sometimes resolvable with pinging, but mostly the only way to resolve the issue was to exclude, factory reset, then pair them again. And they would die sometimes after an hour or two or maybe after 2-3 days. Totally random. I finally got fed up and excluded them (aeotec/zooz plugs and the 2 zooz powerstrips). I then plugged them in to a powerstrip on the floor in the middle of my office where they had direct line of sight to the stick of maybe 10 feet. Paired them…same issue…kept dying. So they ended up being expensive paperweights. Another example is lutron’s zwave outlet. Kept doing the same thing despite being installed in a location with minimal distance to the stick and other mains powered devices - eventually replaced it with a ge/enbrighten and never had an issue. I have other products from zooz and aeotec (the majority of my sensors are aeotec) and they have never had issues.
Hopefully involvement with the zwave alliance will lead to more products and also better and more frequent firmware updates from manufacturers to resolve issues with some of their products.
Are there any news on the status of the Zwave stick Nabu Casa is working on? Looking to replace my old Aeotec Gen 5 stick but I would love to get the one from NC instead of any other. Any news when it might be coming out (in Europe) or when to expect a release? Just curious if I should wait for it or check for another one. 
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Curious about this too now that Z-Wave JS added support for Z-Wave Long Range (Z-Wave LR) in European RF Region.
Would love to get a Z-Wave 800 Series Long Range controller radio USB adapter with an external antenna for the EU frequency range.
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It would be amazing if Nabu Casa could create something like the ESPHome for zwave. Having that kind of flexibility could grow the adoption quickly.
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Do you mean offer a Silicon Labs EFR32 core platform for ESPHome using Zephyr (RTOS) codebase or similar for use on hardware like the Z-Uno (Z-Wave development board)?
I would love to see that but personally believe there is a larger usebase that would want Zigbee and/or OpenThread + Matter support in ESPHome, and unlike Z-Wave, there are ESP32 models with buiilt in Zigbee/Thread radio (and some peope are working on Zigbee and Thread support for ESPHome).
Anyway, while the use case for Z-Wave might be niche and I do not have the skills to help with that I could see that maybe being technically possible considering these referenses linked here below that show someone working on Zephyr for ESPHome (though for a different platform) and Silicon Labs working on Zephyr support for EFR32 (which in theory could include their Z-Wave radio MCU SoCs), but the main challange would probably be to first convince Silicon Labs to make a Z-Wave library that could be used with it:
z-uno is what I had in mind, but that price point isn’t. The mysensors.org project is closer and could benefit from HA adoption.
Yeah the entry price for playing with esp’s in esphome is negligible. Around $5 plus a USB cable. A far cry from around 50-60 Euro. People will buy an esp and play for the price of coffee.
No, more like the way they adopted ESPHome. Eventually to create inexpensive hardware like the ESP series.
Promote the lower cost electronics as an alternative to ESPHome where longer range and wall penetration matters. Zwave is a good protocol, but cost is still an issue.
Half my house is z-wave, but I stopped buying it in favor of ZigBee (and ESP) some time ago as ZigBee device offerings improved. I haven’t moved onto thread yet, just not much going on there yet to make it worth the effort for me. It’s the price point that’s killing z-wave. While its certainly not dead and has a long life in front of it, it’s definitely in the assisted living home.
I have about 5 different zwave brand devices on my 80 device network and the only device issues I ever had were zooz devices just like you. Got rid of them and now I don’t have any issues. Just like any brand there are good brands and bad brands so there is that 
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I have 62 Zwave devices and also several brands, including Zooz, Inovelli, Jasco and more. Personally I have not have had any issues with my (approx 15) Zooz devices.
Heck, I would like to get one for US frequencies. LOL
Zwave controllers with external antenna are few and far between.
FYI, not sure if their final product will have an external antenna but the prototype Z-Wave Controller USB radio adapter stick that Nabu Casa (Uwe and Dominic) has tested does have an external antenna, see picture of their Z-Wave Controller USB dongle prototype in green color with external antenna in the blog post → Z-Wave is not dead - Home Assistant
Zoom from
Left: Dominic, slightly jetlagged, with our stick prototype (green). Right: DrZWave with the controller reference design (purple). Background: Uwe, 0.7 miles away.
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I think the green color is the bare PCB board. From looking at teardown photos of other controllers they are also the same color Internal photos Internal Photos
Yeah but the point is that specific Nabu Casa prototype clearly has an external antenna, the color does not matter.
What we are asking and hoping for is that their final Z-Wave Controller will have an external antenna.
You can pick any color for your bikeshead as long as it is black 
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Whatever they release had also better be IP-connected. I’ll never buy another USB-connected radio for Z-Wave. PoE or nothing.
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Do you have any Zen26 (switches) or Zen27 (dimmers)? Those are the only ones that crash and become unresponsive after a power failure over here.
But all models, going back to the 3x series have failing LEDs, and a few with plastics that start to show cracks around the bezel.
Zen 27. I have never had iossues with Zooz switches