What is your reference for Zigbee devices only being ”one or two bucks cheaper” than Z-Wave devices?
In my experince Z-Wave devices cost a lot more than Zigbee devices. I live in the European Union and still use mosty Z-Wave devices (which all more or less just work since started buying more then 10-years ago), but I also bought loads of Zigbee devices for myself + others and on average I estimate that I paid around 3-times higher price or more for each mains-powered Z-Wave device, and around 4-times more for battery-powered Z-Wave device on average.
E.g. a good Z-Wave plug like the one from Fibaro cost €50, and a Z-Wave dimmer module like the one from Qubino cost around €60 in Europe, and Zigbee battery-operated devices costing less than €10 per device and Z-Wave battery-operated devices costing around €40 on average.
I do however not think a direct comparison is fair because both hardware and firmware build quality of all Z-Wave devices have been much higher, probably due to most Z-Wave devices I bought has been designed and/or manufactured in Europe, while most Zigbee devices I use have been designed and/or manufactures in China.
Please don’t get me wrong, I have been willing to pay a premium for Z-Wave devices because of their higher quality reliability, but I definitely think the Z-Wave higher cost is prohibitive which makes less manufacturers adopt the standard and thus the userbase has suffered.
For me, I personally have had many Chinese Zigbee devices fail on me due to hardware or firmware faults (even though I do have a very solid Zigbee network mesh), so I therefore now at least try to avoid using Chinese Zigbee devices in automations where individual devices ”need to work”, because I do not trust such devices to work for sure.
I can pick up (decent, not Tuya) door/window sensors for about £9 each for Zigbee, or from about £30 for Z-Wave.
Other sensors have similar disparity, though plugs tend to be closer - £20 or so for decent Zigbee plugs and from about £40 for Z-Wave.
Yes, here it costs more than twice as much to go Z-Wave over Zigbee. That’s why I switched when I wanted to put a sensor on every exterior window.
Z-Wave is great in that there’s an actual standard, and standards testing. I had a better experience with things like Association than Zigbee’s Binding, and I never bought a duff Z-Wave device. However I just don’t have deep enough pockets to buy as many Z-Wave devices as I have Zigbee ones.
I have recently ditched my entire Z-Wave setup and moved to Zigbee. The key reason was cost! Zigbee devices typically cost 5 times less in my experience. My Zigbee network is also more stable and reacts much faster than my old Z-Wave setup.
I, too shy away from IP devices. In addition to your reasons, it’s just harder to find IP devices which support fully local control. When I need one, I have no problem building my own in ESPHome, thereby eliminating most of these problems. I can choose to update the firmware on my schedule, if needed.
But, honestly, once I’ve got a device which turns on a light, sends me a signal when my sump pump comes on, or whatever, I don’t need or want any more firmware updates. I want it to keep doing what it’s been doing, without any maintenance overhead on my part.
This feeds into one problem you mentioned with IP-based devices, since those are potentially in a more hostile security environment, and new vulnerabilities can be identified in firmware which otherwise works just fine.
Yeah agreed. The last thing I need is more IP devices on my home network, especially wireless devices creating more wireless congestion.
I believe Thread/Matter has ways to communicate directly on it’s own network with only certain devices acting as border gateways but so far every Matter device I have tested is just another WiFi device I have to contend with.
Not to knock Thread/Matter, I know it’s in the early days still, but it’s gonna take years longer to mature before I am ready to replace tried and tested solutions like Zigbee and ZWave which have many years under their belt.
big fan of zwave - still using inwall zwave modules from various manufacturers here in Australia. many are from 2012… so 12years old… thats about $8 per year per device… so cost is not really a big thing for me if its going to last. My zigbee sensors are not only far less reliable, but probably more expensive given the batteries they have burned up… I can still buy Zwave modules and will continue to use them for all in-wall devices… trusted and work well.
Do battery-powered Z-Wave devices really last that much longer on one battery? My Zigbee temperature and door sensors go for 6-12 months on one of those inexpensive button batteries. It seems to me I’d have to burn through them very quickly to justify spending $96 on each device, instead of the $10-$20 I’ve been spending on Zigbee devices.
I’m not knocking Z-Wave. I just want to make sure we’re making a fair comparison.
No they don’t in my opinion. I have Aeotec recessed door sensors in every door and some barely last a month on a CR2, and these aren’t high traffic doors, one of them rarely ever closes. My Zooz ZSE40 do last a long time on a CR123 but my ZSE41/42/43 all have poor battery life on CR2032 batteries
Also not knocking ZWave but anyone is gonna have a hard time convincing most people $8/year for 8 years is a good price when a $10-20 solution exists. ZWave is expensive, period. Do you get what you pay for? Sometimes yes. But I have some great Zigbee devices, and some absolutely terrible ZWave devices. It’s not across the board on either side, it’s up to the manufacturer to make their products not suck.
You didn’t mention how big your Z-Wave network is, but if you like Z-Wave then maybe start by replacing 1 or 2 of these problematic devices with some from a different mfr., to see if the problem persists (which might indicate some wiring, power, or other issue). It’s also more manageable to do one at a time.
As someone who prefers Zigbee[0], I can tell you that’s no panacea, either. Mostly everything works fairly reliably, however I currently have a few sensors dropping off which I am trying to diagnose at the moment, and I have read similar threads from others.
Great discussion, everyone! I read through the whole thread carefully. I really hope that @Z-Wave-Chair did, too!
The earlier posts almost convinced me to jump off the Zigbee bandwagon and onto the Z-Wave one.
But then the later posts reminded me that Z-Wave devices are just too expensive. I can buy several Zigbee devices for the same money. If some of them don’t work out, I figure I am still way ahead.
The switch I’m having the most problems with right now is the Zen27 dimmer in my dining room. The issues in general were common to this model and Zen26 (non-dimmer) of which I have maybe 10.
Sometime in the past month or two, I saw an alert in HA about a firmware update for the Zen26 units. What’s most interesting is that when researching, the release date for the advertised update version was a year or two in the past - yet I’d received firmware files directly from Zooz during that time that were reporting as an older release #. I applied the updates directly from the UI and I believe it’s improved the crashing situations on them.
There wasn’t an update for the Zen27 which is likely why now I’m seeing that one crap out most often. Keeping an eye on the entire network nonetheless. If Nabu release their own controller, I’ll change over to that. At the moment I’m using a Zooz 710 I believe.
Only 25 Z-Wave devices, mostly in-wall switches/dimmers, North-American “Decora” style. In addition I have two in-door magentic sensors and a few plug modules, including one heavy-duty from Zooz which I use for my espresso machine.
I’ve also got 35 Zigbee devices. I haven’t added a Z-Wave device in a few years, as everything I’ve added recently has been module-based switches (to put into things) or wall/door/window mounted sensors and remote buttons. I’ve gone Zigbee for all this stuff and it’s worked very well - the prices have been a fraction of Z-Wave alternatives and there are at least 10-20 times more options/variety (or more).
Every Matter device is IP based and it’s pretty obvious that while off to a slow start, it’s the way forward for most companies producing consumer-facing gear.
Z-Wave is like 25 years old. How much slower do they want to move? We’ll be controlling devices with our minds soon.
There must be a serious price discrepancy between the US and Europe with Zwave.
In my experience Zwave is ALWAYS the cheaper solution and the most reliable
Sorry you guys across the pond have such poor Zwave support….but remember pretty much everyone here does Zwave and Zigbee is the expensive solution
Also all of the major US security systems use Zwave exclusively….so the number of Zwace devices here dwarfs Zigbee and gets bigger by the day. There are likely 20+ million zwave devices in the US alone thanks to the big monitoring security systems and their commitment to moving all of their sensors to Zwave over thr past decade. My security system has 20 zwave devices bound to its controller…most people probably are 10ish. Our company probably has 80,000 households and easily half of them are new enough to be using the zeave control panels
Just due to this, the number of zwave devices in use on the planet is likely an order of magnitude more than zigbee. Its probably why they want to keep the stick proprietary…its big $$$$$
Zwave already won…Europe just doesn’t known it yet
In Canada looking at smart switches, I find that maybe The z-wave ones are 10% more expensive. Not a big deal. And I love my z-wave reliability, controllability through exposed entities, range etc. The new add-on is fantastic in terms of providing information and allowing changes to the devices and the network.
I wish you were right, but given how the introduction of new z-wave products has tanked here in Europe it looks like you’re wrong…
The only silver lining is the rather cheap Z-wave offer that Shelly has been introducing (as a replacement for the products from Qubino that was taken over by Shelly).
Zwave isn’t going anywhere here for a long time…there is a reason Matter has struggled to take hold…the main market for smart products in the world is dominated by cheap consumer wifi gear and cheap zwave for hobbyists & alarm companies. Zigbee is niche here and Matter has a very uphill fight against big corps that have little real interest in changing from what already is available in mass quantities.
I expect Zwave gear will be easily available on Amazon here for another decade
