I am reading some stuff on here about how a ZWave device wouldn't need to upgrade the HW to use LR but wouldn't they have to do so to get the longer range?
700 series would probably need a firmware update but shouldn't need a hardware upgrade according to what I've read to date.
That may depend on what version of the chipset they have.
- ZGM130S037HGN2 is the latest, the one on the SiLabs LR Dev Kit, and verified it supports 14dBm and up to 1mi.
- ZGM130S037HGN1 is the previous one, the one most manufacturers used, and says up to 13dBm at 100m.
Not sure a FW update will be all that is required. Plus, most vendors qualified the device with the FCC and were required to keep the RF lower so the hardware may not support that extended range.
The only difference for the first few 700 series products would be a star topology in LR instead of the Mesh.
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I know this may be a bit much for the layman but everyone on here seems to be Engineers or Doctors.
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Thanks for posting this, I will review when I have a chance. I have recently changed jobs from traditional Enterprise IT to a major general contractor firm that builds skyscrapers, and now I work for the “Smart Buildings” division.
I’m no RF engineer, (IP & Ethernet is my networking background), but it’s very interesting to see how consumer-level home automation tech like Z-Wave & Zigbee are beginning to intersect with commercial systems and evolve. For example, @JasonJoel compared Z-Wave LR to LoRaWAN, and then there is Zigbee & IEEE 802.15.4 as communication layers for CHIP & Thread. Sometimes these evolving protocols integrate with each other, and sometimes they compete, (sometimes both), such as CHIP, Zigbee IP, Thread, and 6LoWPAN, all of which run over IEEE 802.15.4.
As an aside, @JasonJoel, are there consumer-level LoRa/LoRaWAN products available in the market? And are you integrating any such products into a consumer-level solution like Hubitat? Or are the LoRaWAN gateways too expensive to justify at the expected price point a consumer could stomach?
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As with Z-Wave long range, there are a few development kits for LoRa that are almost full-fledged products. But as someone mentioned previously it is the LoRa router that is hard to set up and not very user friendly and I am an electrical engineer with 39 years of programming experience.
In my opinion, I don't think you will see a lot of commercially available LoRa products until this one aspect can be fmade more user friendly.
I sent a question in to silabs who is the maker of the Z-Wave chipsets.
The only issue with long range that I have found is that the firmware must be compiled for long range or not long range. It's not a run time switch and so a developer would have to have two versions of firmware for the same device.
Internally to the code it is actually a compile time switch.
The good news is that the hardware could be the same.
This would make a manufacturer have to decide whether long range was on their roadmap.
Just to clarify though, we can run both LR and Classic on the same hub right even though LR devices don't repeat? Or will we need a secondary hub top separate the networks?
One hub for both. EDIT: Although it is unclear to me whether that can be added "on the run" on an existing gateway or if the zwave network would have to be trashed/set default, capability turned on, then rebuilt... The docs are confusing there.
Now that v7.15.4.0 is released to the public (1st public non-pre-GA version with zwave lr), maybe that is the version we will see in a future platform update. 
Only @bcopeland knows for sure though.
C-7 currently runs 7.14.1, which isn't really a bad thing - changes in 7.14.2 & 3 didn't look all that interesting to me... but what do I know?
The below chart is only for the SDK:
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Running this on my LR dev hub for a couple days now..
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It works without a reset..
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Now having said this.. Yes I have tested it..
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I couldn't tell for sure. I'm an amateur, so I get confused sometimes on what can be done where between the z/ip gateway notes and the sdk notes.
These docs are not exactly written in plain english.. In fact sometimes it’s almost useless..
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Fair enough.
Also to be clear, the legal IP review isn't technically complete either (June). But I would think they are expecting that to come out OK, otherwise they wouldn't be proceeding.
Correct.. While they have started certification.. Manufacturers may need to re-certify if there are changes ..
Yeah. I would fully expect some manufacturers to not get super serious on manufacturing until after that is done. I'm sure they are all still working on devices/prototypes, but I expect it would be hard to justify going to mass production pre-certification.
Assuming they can even get parts TO manufacture anything, and aren't waiting on a mystery IC they can't get right now... Stupid supply chain issues.
Cool thing is.. There is no reason for manufacturers to not jump on this when the dust settles.. A LR device can be included in a classic mesh (backwards compatible)...
