I didn't see any mention of Z-Wave LR in the 2.2.6 release notes. Has this been pushed?
Yes.. Start of Z-Wave LR certification has been pushed too.. There are changes to the standard still being made, so it was counterproductive.. But it will be ready before devices are being sold.. When I started on the project I thought the standard was completed..
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Overlapping use of the word "pushed" possibly -- I'm guessing from the followup sentence that you mean "pushed out to a later release" rather than "pushed out in 2.2.6" #devTerminologyProblems 
I just looked this up.
SiLabs produces the 700 Series chipset. The only ones that do.
The long range suppr0t just came out this year.
silabs.c o m/documents/public/release-notes/SRN14695-3-7.15.2.0.pdf
I wouldn't even consider a product with that until the manufacturer fixes these things.
I don't understand that statement.
Zwave lr is already supported in the shipping hardware... The hardware already in the Hubitat C7. They are just finishing up the software and intellectual property review before it is final (likely around 6/2021).
So it isn't like it is something new from the hub hardware side of things. We already have it.
That said, even after the C7 hub is upgraded to a 7.15.x rev of the zwave SDK/firmware no one has to use zwave lr if they don't want to. No real downside.
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There is no difference in HW for LR.
The software isn't ready. SiLabs track record of SDK updates for ZWave says there will be many SW updates and SDK releases.
Manufacturer == SiLabs. Not Hubitat.
And almost certainly Z-Wave Long Range device availability in the ecosystem will lag behind the support being added to the Hubitat C-7.
And while Hubitat has a Long Range upgrade path, unfortunately most of the Z-Wave device vendors have a very poor track record of new device firmware with features or even updates. I am expecting most Z-Wave Long Range device support will come in the form of completely new devices. For this reason, LR is not on my radar until my next house, and next home automation project.
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I think we might have a case of "lost in translation". Nobody here is saying different than you, not sure why you are continuing to make these points...
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Me too. 100%.
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Maybe. There have only been a couple updates in the last 9 months on zwave 700 - not that bad for a brand new setup.
Very possible zwave lr will be buggy when it comes out, though. Dunno yet.
No (commercial) devices are available yet in any case so the point is moot.
I wonder how the "extra power" will work.
The key to LR is that it is able to crank up the power on the radio substantially to reach those distances.
That is replete with issues of heat, power supply capability, and all the funkiness that radio waves create when they start bouncing around with that extra energy.
It seems quite likely that new designs explicitly made for that kind of radio power will be better behaved.
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I'm also skeptical. For me I appreciate and don't mind the Z-Wave mesh network that is built by relying on repeaters to build a strong network over a large space.
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I'm not skeptical at all.
Keep in mind that other 900MHz based protocols and radio systems have had multi kilometer range and 3+ year battery life for years. This isn't exactly cutting edge stuff.
Of course battery life at ling rage depends on a number of things, but I guess that is always true of radio transmissions of any kind.
I stuck one of my LoRaWAN temperatures at a friends house over a mile away and it is only on medium transmit strength/radio time. Reporting hourly it will last a few years.
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No. But.
The current devices were designed, built, and tested using MUCH lower power to the radio chip.
LR requires that they crank that power up rather dramatically.
So, while the technology isn't novel to the larger world, it certainly is new to these devices that were designed for non-LR power levels.
And they were also designed with an antenna that is way more substantial then the ones in HE and Z-Wave devices from what I have seen. Also your LoRaWAN example the antenna is far better then anything I've seen in Z-Wave devices to date.
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That's what I was kinda wondering, too.
Heat dissipation and maybe an external antenna on the hub, at least???
C-8??? 
I doubt we'll see many existing Z-Wave 700 based devices (of which there are not that many) upgraded to LR. Time will tell. But, I do think we'll see manufacturers bringing out LR devices yet this year. By that, I don't know when they will come to market, but as an engineering accomplishment, we expect that this year.
Whether or not C-7 will have RF/antenna/power issues with LR is right now an unknown. We have not done this engineering work yet. We have a pretty good handle on the software and SDK issues for LR. We are not expecting a moving target problem with the software, but again, time will tell.
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Depends. I do have long range LoRa devices with nice external antennas. But I also have LoRa devices that look EXACTLY like a z-wave or zigbee device. In fact, there are multiple manufacturers that make both LoRa and Zwave models of their devices that look identical (aka no giant external antenna required). Sensative is one of them.
PCB based or pig tail antenna certainly won't get multi-mile range, but not all devices need that range either.
Anyway, I don't expect many commercial Zwave LR devices this year. If you can't get official cert untl mid-year that means a number of manufacturers won't even begin volume production until after that (assuming they have a design ready to go on day 1). That puts it into early 2022 (at a minimum) for any kind of volume availability.
I would love to make Zwave LR versions of the LoRaWAN devices I make. BUT, zwave cert requires manufacturer level membership - $10K - which eliminates the entire hobbyist market. Could make it non-cert, I guess. But blah.
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I'm late to the party, but for what its worth. i'm looking forward to this capability. i have a couple of outlets far from my hub by the gate to my property that i would love to reach.
would this work so i could have one LR device at a distance from a hub, and then other devices that are not near the LR device being meshed over to the hub by the LR device? That would be pretty sweet so i can get started with one device and slowly migrate things over to LR.
Not as far as I know. As I understand the docs, LR devices don't repeat for non-LR devices, and LR devices can't use repeaters to extend their range.
