Z-Wave or Zigbee

[racerfern]

I just bought a Yale lock because of the styling (WAF) more than anything else. It came with both zigbee and z-wave modules. Just plug in the one you want and away you go.

Given these circumstances, which one would you all go with? I have both up and running. Battery life is better on zigbee for the devices I have. Is z-wave more secure, does security really matter at all?

[brientim]

I just bought a Yale lock because of the styling (WAF) more than anything else. It came with both zigbee and z-wave modules. Just plug in the one you want and away you go.

Given these circumstances, which one would you all go with? I have both up and running. Battery life is better on zigbee for the devices I have. Is z-wave more secure, does security really matter at all?

Right now the z-wave offers more functionality and out of the box integration using native z-wave.

The zigbee integration is limited through DeCONZ, Conbee and JowiHue plugin which currently only can lock/unlock and battery. They are developing this as we discuss this and working on user/pin management and expanding the reporting capabilities.

In isolated testing the zigbee has faster response and more reliable. It is hard to assess battery life as that depends on real life usage and other factors but according to specs it should be about the same. The other benefit of zigbee is the enrolment does not require the device to be right next to the lock.

[cd36]

What devices do you have close to your lock? Which mesh is stronger in your house?

[fresnoboy]

Zwave network maintenance is a bit rocky in my experience. Whereas my zigbee network is rock solid, with the exception of some cheap aqara devices that are picky about repeaters. But even though zwave is supposed to have better range, I find the zigbee works well.

The lock under zwave has some issues with pairing if you are not close to it. Sometimes it works through intermediate nodes, but others now. I have 5 of the yale locks and they are not close to each other so pairing is a pain. Code management is a win, but I have not had luck with BLLOCK, and the base zwave function doesn't give you user code info, so not clear it's that helpful over zigbee.

After moving all my exterior lights to zigbee controlled relays on only a few devices left, its working well enough to leave it alone. But a few more issues and I'll pay for the zigbee modules and swap these all out.

[mulu]

I looked into z-wave, zigbee and wifi a few years ago and from my research z-wave was the way to go. Pretty much all wireless devices in our home are z-wave with a few RF/somfy devices. Once in a while a device does somehow get disassociated but otherwise it works pretty well. The only major issue I ever experienced is with the HS4 z-wave plugin that lost all my devices and brought my entire system down. But that is not an issue with z-wave itself but HS.

[racerfern]

What devices do you have close to your lock? Which mesh is stronger in your house?

The front door lock will be within a foot or so of powered HS dimmers. It is probably 15' away from a zigbee bulb that acts as a repeater. Both zwave and zigbee have all sorts of devices throughout the house. Bottom line is the z-wave mesh is stronger with more powered devices and the zigbee are mostly small battery powered units. But both controllers are less than 20' from the front door.

[mulu]

I don't know about the Yale lock. We have Schlage locks that use z-wave. They are kind of pain to include into the network and earlier versions "ate" batteries like crazy. For inclusion you have to bring the z-wave stick literarily within 1 foot of the lock or inclusion won't work (or bring the lock to the z-wave stick). Even then it required several trials. But once they were registered they worked flawlessly. Note that we have a lot of z-wave devices throughout the home so I am not sure how well it will work if your distance is larger or there aren't many repeaters.

[pcburcham]

For inclusion you have to bring the z-wave stick literarily within 1 foot of the lock or inclusion won't work (or bring the lock to the z-wave stick). Even then it required several trials. But once they were registered they worked flawlessly.

I'll second all of that.

I'm thinking it was sparkman who mentioned bringing the lock next to the controller during inclusion when I was having trouble. "Almost touching it", he said. I thought, "that's BS", but I took the lock off the door and held it literally touching the controller before it would work...but it worked 😮. I've pulled it off since then and repainted the door, changed batteries, etc and it is still paired with no issues. I think for the inclusion problems alone I'll try zigbee locks next go around.

I haven't had any battery issues with my Schlage locks, but I did switch to Eneloop rechargeable batteries off someone's recommendation here on the forum and I love em'. I'm getting just as much use out of a charge cycle as I was with regular batteries. Just mentioning it if it ever strikes you to try rechargeables.

[racerfern]

I just tried the z-wave without success. Obviously, I put the lock next to the z-net after reading numerous posts. BTW, I have two z-nets and it appears it partially included into the unit that's 50' away. Go figure. I tried excluding but just like including I get beeps and failures. I've also factory reset the lock to no avail.

Honestly, as easy as they try to make it look, there's just no substitute for good information. I'm going to try the legacy z-wave PI and hope for better results. If I could somehow go back to HS3 and not lose functionality I would do it in a heartbeat!

9/10/2021 17:55:07 Legacy-Plugin Z-Wave Error Error, the Add Node response object is null and a normal ending was not reported - Add Node failed.

Win7
HS4.1.18
z-wave PI 3.0.7
z-wave UI 1.0.0

[cd36]

I just tried the z-wave without success. Obviously, I put the lock next to the z-net after reading numerous posts. BTW, I have two z-nets and it appears it partially included into the unit that's 50' away. Go figure. I tried excluding but just like including I get beeps and failures. I've also factory reset the lock to no avail.

Honestly, as easy as they try to make it look, there's just no substitute for good information. I'm going to try the legacy z-wave PI and hope for better results. If I could somehow go back to HS3 and not lose functionality I would do it in a heartbeat!

9/10/2021 17:55:07 Legacy-Plugin Z-Wave Error Error, the Add Node response object is null and a normal ending was not reported - Add Node failed.

Win7
HS4.1.18
z-wave PI 3.0.7
z-wave UI 1.0.0

Where are you trying to do the inclusion from, which screen?

I go to plugins - zwave - controller management.

Then in there it should list every zwave interface you have in the system. Make sure you select the correct interface, then do an inclusion from here.

The fact it partially worked on the interface you didn't want, says to me you had tried doing the inclusion on the wrong interface.

[racerfern]

The fact it partially worked on the interface you didn't want, says to me you had tried doing the inclusion on the wrong interface.

I would agree with you except for the fact that I'm very careful about which interface I select. Obviously, I might have selected the wrong one but I'll bet not.

Anyways, I brought the unit to the other z-net and was able to exclude it. Then, I tried again using the legacy pages. It included immediately but the root is one of my HomeSeer floodlight sensors! What a cluster...

The lock will not lock or unlock by clicking the button on the screen, for all I know one of my HomeSeer outdoor lights is going on and off. I assume this is due to a misconfigured/corrupted zwave database but how do I fix this and how do I know it's fixed.

[racerfern]

I was able to remove the z-wave info via exclude. However, only the lock cleared itself. The z-wave database still shows Node 48. How do I get rid of that?

[George]

I was able to remove the z-wave info via exclude. However, only the lock cleared itself. The z-wave database still shows Node 48. How do I get rid of that?

You can't delete an old or removed node number. But in the case you go over 255, it will go back and reuse the unknown/removed nodes.

[racerfern]

zwolfpack thoughts on my issue in post #13?

[zwolfpack]

Do you mean that the Node shows up on the Node Information page, but there are no associated devices?

I guess my first step would be to perform a 'Reset Z-Wave Database'. It looks like that's been moved to the 'Advanced Functions' menu.