Does the HE hub support Zigbee 3.0 and Z-Wave plus

Hello Folks,

Does the current iteration of the hub support Zigbee 3.0 and Z-Wave plus radios? Want to make sure I buy the latest type of sensors that the hub can fully utilize

Appreciate your help

HE supports zwave+ devices.

For zigbee, it will pair to zha1.2 and zll profile devices. Notably, the zigbee 3.0 spec requires interoperability with legacy zha1.2 and zll devices, so you should be fine. I have some zigbee 3.0 sensors that work well with my Hubitat Elevation.

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Maybe @aaiyar will make a liar of me but I've avoided zwave+, though it is an option on most of my devices, because I've yet to find anyone who feels it's worth the hassle. YMMV

There's no reason to avoid z-wave+ devices. If anything, i would avoid non-plus devices (shorter range, lower battery life, no instant status).

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Told ya :wink:

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I have >70 zwave plus devices on my main hub... So you can put me in the "I don't avoid it" camp...

There isn't any more "hassle" to it than zigbee... And actually less if you accidentally get a few zigbee bulbs/devices that end up being bad repeaters.

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:eyes:WHAAAAAAT? Why on earth would you avoid +?

Z-Wave Plus vs Z-Wave:

  • Increased Range – Devices can communicate from up to 150m away as long as there’s no significant interference.
  • Battery Life – 50% more battery life keeps your devices online longer.
  • Bandwidth – 250% more bandwidth means your network can handle larger amounts of data and continue operating at maximum efficiency.
  • F Channels – Three included “F Channels” improve the connections of your device, minimizing interference and increasing bandwidth.
  • Improved Self-Healing – Z-Wave Plus is better at continuing to operate when something goes wrong, taking steps on its own to address the issue and being more resilient with fault tolerance using the “Explorer Frame” feature.
  • Standardized Updates – No matter the Z-Wave Plus device, they all use a standard method for over-the-air firmware updates.
  • Improved Product Information Capture – Z-Wave Plus can more easily capture information on new products for the certification database.
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Z-Wave Plus (500 series) and Z-Wave Plus V2 (700 series) offer tremendous speed and range improvements over older pre-plus devices. For the purpose of this comparison we will omit older Z-wave devices that operate at 9.6Kbps.

300 Series 500 Series 700 Series
AKA: Z-Wave Z-Wave Plus Z-Wave Plus V2
Bandwidth: 40Kbps 100Kbps 100Kbps
Range Indoor (Direct): more than 30 meters up to 75 meters up to 100 meters
Network Wide Inclusion: No Optional Yes
Explorer Frames: No Yes Yes
Security S0: Yes Yes Yes
Security S2: No Optional Yes
OTA Firmware: No Optional Yes
FLiRS: Optional Optional Yes

More information: Silicon Labs 700 Series

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Because the people I personally know that use Z-wave say it's a major PITA and not worth it. And, so far, every Z-wave device I have is mains powered and range has not been an issue.

That said, I'm glad to hear that I'm misinformed and will keep that in mind if I have range issues or just need to rebuild the mesh for some reason.

Thanks for your perspective.

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I'm the other way around. I specifically ripped out all NON plus devices from my network to get max speed on my zwave mesh, and avoid other issues like status update polling.

As zwave 700 devices are so slow to come out (let alone zwave 700 hub support), I figure zwave plus will hold me for 3-5 more years until something newer/shinier comes out in volume.

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Do those same people still use dialup internet?

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Me too.. Best thing I did...

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Ditto. After sniffing my mesh for a while and seeing some old zwave devices dump it down to 9.6k periodically, that was the last straw. Out they went, and up went my speeds (as confirmed by the sniffer).

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So what speed are you seeing now?

Almost everything is 100k. Some 40k, only diagnostic frames are 9.6k (those never go away in order to maintain backward compatibility all the way back to zwave 100).

So on the devices that were causing not only their traffic, but also traffic repeated through them to go to 9.6k that's a 4-10x speed increase. And I can tell you on my system it was quite noticeable!

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:+1: :+1: Thank you

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Do I simply exclude each device and re-include in + mode, one by one? Exclude all then include? Any gotchas in the changeover?

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If you have any zwave+ devices, they would have already been included as zwave+ devices.

To be clear, there's no confusion between zwave+ and secure zwave here, is there?

You definitely do not want to be use secure zwave (outside of locks and garage door openers).

Edit: Not using secure zwave (except for locks and garage door openers) fits with your friends' recommendations - it will slow your zwave network down).

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Wait you have + devices?

Are we confusing + with secure pairing?

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