Z-Wave Long Range and its mile-long capabilities will arrive next year
arstechnica.com
Few homes will need it, but the (literal) edge cases are quite intriguing.
  • mac@lemm.eeEnglish
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    3 days ago

    Sweet! Wonder what the use cases are with that kinda range. I guess if you own a lot of property it would be nice.

  • Badabinski@kbin.earth
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    3 days ago

    I’m deeply confused. I have a shitload of Zooz stuff that supports Long Range. Does the whole star topology and everything. Is this some sort of new development? Or did the author miss the long range stuff that’s been available for a year now?

    EDIT: many commentors over on Ars are also confused.

  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    3 days ago

    I’d be more inclined to trust LoRa for anything that needs that sort of distance.

    • Badabinski@kbin.earth
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      3 days ago

      I spent several weeks evaluating options and really wanted to use LoRa for controlling some stuff in a detached machine shop, but I just couldn’t find reasonably priced sensors, switches, and gateways (or access points or whatever you call them in LoRa parlance). I seem to recall that one of the major integrations was cloud-polling only which was a huge no-go (same reason I didn’t buy in heavily into Yolink, I require 100% local control).

      Do you use LoRa? I’d love to hear what you use (brands and vendors to buy stuff from) if so. I try to have at least two different technologies controlling an area. That way, my zwave-js-ui pod occasionally shitting the bed won’t completely break an area.

      • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        3 days ago

        I’ve used the Heltec Lora v2 and v3 which are ESP32 devices and you can put ESPhome on them. The V2 are delicate little things and I’m pretty sure they’re static sensitive, so if you get anything, get the V3. Of course, when they went V2 to V3, they didn’t keep it pin compatible because fuck me, I guess. But I fixed that and now I’m on V3 devices. You can put an external 9 or 13 dBi gain antenna on these and I’ve gotten a few miles with them, LOS. I use these on pumping systems to communicate between the trough and pump on long pasture cattle watering lines.

        If I want to go longer range or have some trees in the way, I’ve been using ebyte E32 standalone (UART) radios. You can get 25 miles out of those with good direction YAGI antennas, as they can run at 1W. I have an amateur radio license so I’m legal to use that power if I don’t encrypt it, which is fine because all I’m doing with it is sending telemetry (gates, pumps, temperature) on the farm or between equipment for RTK correction on my AgOpenGPS units.

  • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nlEnglish
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    3 days ago

    KNX + zWave + esphome (especially when it gets matter support) will be the ultimate combo of reliability and flexibility!

        • bangsnooter@lemmy.zipEnglish
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          3 days ago

          I read that and their website and still don’t know what it is? It’s neither hardware nor a protocol?

          • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nlEnglish
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            3 days ago

            KNX is indeed a protocol, but there is a whole multi - manufacturer ecosystem around it. It is mostly used in the commercial space. It is literally the ultimate smart electricity ecosystem for reliability.

            Everything that I did is done in the electrical box so you buy traditional push button switches for the walls with very thin, cheap cable, and then your lights as normal.

            It is wired originally with twisted pair bus that delivers power and data. They branched out also into wireless products also now using 898MHz bands (same as zwave).

            The protocol is very tightly regulated but everything is guaranteed to work. It isn’t wireless so it doesn’t have shitty mesh problems like zwave and ZigBee have with many devices. You don’t get bad device behaviors and disconnects with power outages. There are no shitty batteries to replace (and no fibaro zwave devices having ridiculous battery drains when outside of a +/-10C range from 20C).

            It will simply work and keep working for your lifetime, unlike many or most ZigBee and Zwave devices.

            Unlike Starfighter says, It actually isn’t that expensive for basic home users. if you do it correctly and don’t go for “everything being LCD panels”. It is much much cheaper than retrofitting every socket with ZigBee or zwave smart switches. I am fully stripping and renovating my house and it is literally about the same price as doing everything with modern teleruptors, with 10x the functionality. If you include the license, then maybe 10% more expensive.

            It cost me literally 1400€ 32 switches, 16 circuits of on/off lights and fans (or I could use them for roll blinds), and 4 dimming circuits, plus temperature and humidity sensors to smartly turn on bathroom fans. It is €30 for every Shelly wave module which would be 1000€ just for the switches alone with no dimming or sensing. Plus if you are already rewiring you house, you get to save a shit ton of money using small gauge cable with potential-less contacts.

            Don’t get me wrong, zwave is great, but KNX is absolutely king at only a marginal price premium (for standard home users, commercial focused HVAC controllers and such are expensive as hell)

          • Starfighter@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
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            3 days ago

            Mostly its really fucking expensive. Usual applications are central control of heating and window blinds in large office buildings.

            Part of what drives the price is that ideally it’s all hard wired.

            • bangsnooter@lemmy.zipEnglish
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              3 days ago

              I’m still confused as to what the product is, that just sounds like commercial Home Assistant. What is hardwired? Some knx device similar to a Shelly?

              • peregus@lemmy.worldEnglish
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                3 days ago

                It’s an buildings automation standard. The products that implement it are usually expensive

  • tburkhol@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    3 days ago

    Zwave is my first choice for new devices. Love that I can just scan the little QR code, turn it on, and have it come up in HA. Super-long range, I’m going to have to look for outdoor sensors.

    But I’m also thinking - my parents are starting to have health problems - that a mile could even be a family member or friend’s house. Not as intrusive as cameras, but an easy way to see that they’re up and about…making coffee, TV on, or whatever, and not (potentially) collapsed in the shower unable to get up.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      3 days ago

      I’d rather set up a point-to-point wireless link with directional antennas and exactly two base stations than rely on every little IoT device having long range. Better yet, such a link could be high-bandwidth and capable of handling things like data backups and Internet access failover.