ZigBee vs Z-Wave

[eldaria]

I have for many years thought of building some home automation, but it was the launch of Almond+ in combination with a planned move, that actually got me starting to look into this.

And this is what I have so far figured, in the ZigBee vs Z-Wave area, this is all theoretical, I have so far not purchased a single device, except for the Almond+ Developer Pledge.

ZigBee has the advantage of not being locked to regions, but from what I can find this seems to be the only advantage over Z-Wave?
ZigBee instead has a major disadvantage, and that is that it is Profile based in "hardware/firmware", so you might have two ZigBee devices, but they can't talk to each other because they speak different language.
It also seems ZigBee is widely used, but integrated into other brand, and it does not state anywhere that it is ZigBee, or you have to dig deep to find it. It is instead integrated into closed systems, so this makes it more difficult to find devices that are compatible.
ZigBee also operates on the same frequency as many other devices, and has to fight for the frequency spectrum, devices such as DECT, WiFi, BlueTooth, and many more, use the same frequency as ZigBee.

Z-Wave on the other hand has regional limitations, in that they operate on different frequencies in different parts of the world, so you are limited to ordering from shops in your region.
It is also a propitiatory standard, so I suppose the price is increased by license cost.

On the advantages side,
Z-Wave seems to be more widely adopted, and it is easier to find devices that are Z-Wave compatible from different Manufacturers.

Since Almond+ supports Z-Wave of your region, and also the ZigBee HA profile, you could combine devices in your network, so you could have a ZigBee motions sensor turn on a Z-Wave plug. However, this can be risky, as one of the advantages of both types of network, is the Mesh design, but a ZigBee device can't route a Z-Wave signal, and vice versa. So devices would have to rely on direct communication to the base unit if it is alone in the network.


Personally, I think ZigBee has a potential, but they need to get their bunny together and have multiple Profile support.
I will most likely focus my system on the Z-Wave standard, and this is because it seems to be easiest to find devices compatible with this standard.

What are your thoughts?

[LGNilsson]

Hmmm... where to start...

ZigBee does actually have very good coexistence with other 2.4GHz devices as it's not broadcasting all the time, it uses very little bandwidth and has comparatively narrow frequency channels.
Z-Wave isn't much better as there are plenty 900MHz devices around too, but it largely depends on what devices you have in your home, but usually older cordless phones, some walkie talkies, baby monitors, wireless door bells and other similar things often use the 900MHz band and on top of that it's also used by amateur radio.

However, you're correct that it's a "bad standard" due to the multiple profiles things, but on the plus side, it has better security/encryption in comparison to Z-Wave.
The hardware is actually the same for ZigBee, but you need a different firmware and potentially slightly different software (although the latter can be quite easily solved) to use different profiles.
This is something Z-Wave doesn't suffer from and Z-Wave also has good backwards compatibility due to one company controlling the standard, more or less.

You're correct about the higher cost for Z-Wave, as beyond more expensive chipsets (at the rate of 3-4x over ZigBee) all Z-Wave devices needs to be certified by the Z-Wave alliance and there's an annual fee to be a member of the alliance. This all adds cost to the devices, regardless of the type of device.
This is also the downside of ZigBee as the standard is not so tightly controlled and some companies goes and adds their own non-standard additions that makes their devices incompatible with other brands.
To be very clear here, we follow the ZigBee HA standard and we're not deviating from it due to the fact that we want to be compatible with as many sensors as possible.

The regional issue - there's currently 10 or 11 different regions - is also a major pain, as it means that companies that want to sell Z-Wave devices in multiple markets need 1. certify each device for each region 2. produce multiple variants of each device to cover the regions they want to sell their product(s) in 3. stock and handle shipping of all the various SKU's for all the regions. This is of course not something the consumer has to worry about, but it means that most companies will only focus on one or two major regions. As such it's easy to find Z-Wave devices in North America and Europe, but not so much elsewhere.

Z-Wave has been around for much longer than ZigBee, so it's a more established standard, but ZigBee seems to be growing exponentially faster due to the lower total cost for the manufacturers.

There's no clear winner, as both standards have advantages and disadvantages. However, we believe that the cost of ZigBee enabled sensors and devices will come down much quicker than Z-Wave due to the lower total cost to the manufacturers and this is generally what makes one standard more popular than the other as at the end of the day, it's the consumers that vote with their wallets.

Home automation has so far not been as popular as it ought to be due to 1. cost 2. complexity 3. lack of good control devices until recently (smartphones/tablets). Easy of use is the second biggest problem outside of cost and there are many bad solutions out there. Our goal is to create something that's easy to use and we believe the Almond+ will change a lot of people's idea about home automation, as we're truly trying to make this consumer accessible technology. 




 

[mistandmore]

Lars great explanation!  we are a company making a cooperation with a Slovakian enterprise level access control/environmental monitoring/security company CGC.sk together we are integrating their new portal solution with our pumps and motors that we build here in the usa to be the first app based producer in our industry.  While still being able to offer wide spread control of other devices throughout the home.

  One issue we are finding compared to other equipment being used by other oem's in similar industries is  range.  We are noticing that zigbee pro seems to have a range in the usa of usually 300 - 500 feet through walls.  A typical end user will have the gateway inside the home, and the equipment being controlled is outside the home in the backyard.  zigbee pro seems to have no problem reaching this distance with one gateway and then the one device at the end.  Is said to travel even much further than normal wifi signal.  However we much prefer to use Z-wave because of the availability of devices and we are almost finding the prices to be cheaper probably do to availability.  CGC has coded their firmware to work on the open source open wrt platform and we are using a TP link router to talk to their web servers and then an aeon Zstick to transmit the signal, then a evolve lfm-20 at the end.  Sometimes paired with an extra relay to control a 1.5 hp motor.  However the distance achieved with this configuration seems to only be 30 to 40 feet with a few basic walls in the way, no matter what the wall is made of concrete or metal  studs we really only seem to get 30 to 40 feet. we are also trying to use the aeon Repeater which advertises it actually boosts the signal much further than a normal device, but so far to date we actually are not seeing any of the devices really being able to extend the distance weather using the repeater or a normal wall outlet lamp module.

Is it true that zigbee pro should have 2 to 3 times the distance of zwave?
If we are currently using the openwrt firmware on the TP link router with the CGC customized modules do you think it will seamlessly integrate in with your almond +?  will your firmware allow for our own custom modules to run and talk to the web server like it is currently doing?
Any thoughts on the issues with range and why zigbee pro is so much further than zwave?

I am currently here in Slovakia and I stumbled over your product yesterday and showed it to everyone here, and frankly at first everyone though it to be a haox because it is so unbelievable!  they said surely this cannot be true all for an $80 target price point!? is this an april fools video?  I spent an hour or so digging more and more and realized you guys are doing a great job and already producing your first model so readily accepted and highly reviewed I am now eagerly awaiting the release of this model as i think it can be a great solution to integrate with our products and hopefully can work better maybe for our issues with range. 

Cheers!

[LGNilsson]

Hi there,

This is not something we've experienced during our internal testing. I'm afraid that I'm not personally familiar with the aeon Zstick, but I'm currently using a micasa verde veralite (which is Z-Wave based) at home and it doesn't seem to have very good range either. I live in a comparatively small house which happens to have three stories and I can barely reach the far end of the second one with the veralite and it doesn't reach the third floor which can be what, 10-12 meters away from the veralite or something like that. Note that the house is made of concrete and rebar and it's far from ideal for wireless signals.
That said, one of the great claims of fame of 900MHz wireless technology is that it's meant to have better wall penetration in comparison to 2.4GHz, but it's not something I can say that the veralite lives up to. That said, I have as yet to test ZigBee in my home, but it's something I'll be doing shortly.

The Almond+ will be based on OpenWRT (it runs in parallel with our own NutsOS) and technically you should be able to port whatever you have already done for the TP-Link router. However, the Almond+ is based on a Cortex-A9 ARM based processor whereas the TP-Link router is most likely running on a MIPS based processor, so it's possible that there are some differences. We're not planning on locking down the Almond+ and we'd be happy to talk to you if you'd consider it as a solution for your project. Please PM me here on the forums with your contact details and we can discuss things further.
 

[eldaria]

Aren't both Z-Wave and ZigBee Mesh networks, so in theory if you had various devices (of the same standard) along the way, then they would route the communication so you would reach?

[LGNilsson]

Yes, that's true, but apparently his issue is that he's seeing about 10th of the range using Z-Wave over ZigBee, which seems a bit strange.

[Pestus]

I'm starting to think that Z-Wave is going to end up being the choice for general use components.  The puritan compatibility offered by the platform makes life dead simple.  It's bug free integration, essentially. 

Zigbee on the other hand is finding itself in specialty products.  More hardware manufacturers seem to be using it as a means to rig their own custom wireless platforms cheaply.  This means that Zigbee systems are often somewhat proprietary, depending on what you're looking at.

Both will have their particular niche.  With the Almond+ I will stick with Z-wave most of the time, unless something exotic or boutique needs to be integrated.  In that world, Zigbee may shine.

[LGNilsson]

That might very well be the current situation, but it looks like things will change this year with a lot more devices support ZigBee than in the past. I guess we'll see soon enough, but yes, Z-Wave does have some advantages right now, especially when it comes to compatibility.

[cswilly]

Lars, did you ever test ZigBee in your home?
I would be interested in your results.

My tests with the ZigBee smartplugs I received with my A+ seem to give better range than the Wi-Fi in my house. I get about 10m through three walls--one cement and 2 plasterboard. I really do get any Wi-Fi in the same room.

[LGNilsson]

Yes, of course, I get very good range, in fact I have a smart plug behind my microwave in the kitchen one floor down from my Almond+ that I use for switching something on/off in the kitchen with and it works really well and I'm surprised that it's not even that badly affected by the microwave when it's in use.
I had a Z-Wave plug there before, but it didn't work reliably even though the actual distance is less than 10m from the Almond+, so go figure.
Can't really compare with Wi-Fi, although I don't have any issues getting reception in the kitchen on the 2.4GHz band from the Almond+.

[cswilly]

@Lars Thanks for the feedback.

"They" say that z-wave modules are less expensive than zigbee modules. @Lars, I was wondering if you think "They" are correct?
BTW, I "know" that the zigbee chips are less expense than z-wave chips, but the BOM for the modules are not the same.

[LGNilsson]

You don't need a ZigBee module, we've done our own implementation in the Almond+ and our sensors partner has done the same in their devices.
Z-Wave, everyone has to buy the same module at more or less the same pricing, of course somewhat dependent on volume.