I see the hand of Marketing everywhere. I despise what they've done with our language. I see a lot of marcom terminology in HE docs. I cope with it.
Unlike zigbee, ALL zwave devices follow the standard (at lest at some level), as it is required for them to be certified. And all zwave devices have to be certified in order to use the logo/marketing.
That said...
- Is certification perfect? No.
- Does certification guarantee that the firmware is bug free? No.
- Are there times where manufacturers of "certified" devices still do weird things because the standard has some "should" instead of "shall" wordings, or optional capabilities? Yes.
There is no perfect world, but that doesn't mean the zwave certification process isn't still valuable.
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You'd never know it from the product literature. You might think they would be proud of it.
As long as it has the z-wave logo, it's certified
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OK, I just spotted the ZWave logo on a couple of boxes.
So, just for my information, if we have an industry standard with a longer range than ZigBee, why would any manufacturer choose to build a Zigbee device?
zigbee is cheaper. It's also standard throughout the world, where as z-wave is regional. So US z-wave doesn't work on europeon, or asian, etc... those don't work on US... So for other countries zigbee is a better fit as it's more standard internationally. I have a mixture of z-wave, zigbee, wifi, and clear connect.
If you haven't read this post, I recommend reading this as you are new user. Will help with some gotchas.
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That’s because consumers for the most part don’t actually care about standards and certifications when it comes to tech gadgets.
Is some level of standardization and certification necessary to meet the expectations of most consumers that their gadgets will “just work”? Sure.
But if you want to learn about the underlying zigbee and z-wave protocols you’ll have to look into it yourself, since most of what you’ll see in standard product literature or on the box is not for a technically inclined audience.
For example, want to learn more about zigbee? Read up on IEEE 802.15.4 or download one of several specification documents from the Connectivity Standards Alliance.
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My own idea of "standard" is a little more rigid than this.
I too will be be forced to incorporate non-ZWave devices.
My two hubs, HE and Lutron, will hang off the edge of a high shelf in my studio.
Z-Wave chips are available from a single manufacturer (Silicon Labs). In contrast, zigbee chips are available from at least 3 manufacturers (Silicon Labs, Texas Instruments, NXP Labs); competition makes them cheaper.
Design choices like this are made by non-technical Marketing people today. Perfectly good components go out of production in a year. Obvious choices for new products never come to pass. Lutron has 20 colors of switch plates.
Z-Wave isn't totally without disadvantages. Zigbee:
- has historically been lower power, meaning battery devices can last longer or use smaller batteries (there's a reason you never saw coin cells in Z-Wave devices before the 700-series)
- has higher theoretical bandwidth (250 Kpbs vs 100, though for the amount of data tossed around on a smart home network, it's probably inconsequential)
- is "self healing," meaning devices will find a new route back to the hub on their own if the network changes (e.g., you move or unplug a repeater/router; Z-Wave Plus gained a similar feature)
- allows more "hops" (through repeaters/routers) than Z-Wave, potentially allowing for networks that cover larger actual areas, even if a single Z-Wave hop is spec'd for longer range than the same for Zigbee
- allows for larger networks (232 nodes in a mesh, theoretically over 65,000 for Zigbee -- though Z-Wave LR will increase this to 4000+)
- uses the same frequency in all regions, as mentioned above -- though software-selectable frequency introduced in Z-Wave 700 may alleviate some of these concerns
Zigbee is also standardized, even though I joked about that above. There exists a certification process for it, too, and like Z-Wave, it's supposed to mean something. But there appear to be many non-certified devices on the market (or at least ones that still use manufacturer-specific "extensions" for even basic functionality, making generic drivers harder to write, even if technically in line with the spec). It is not as tightly controlled.
But it's important to keep in mind that neither protocol existed in the past in the same way as they do today. Z-Wave, in particular, has made lots of improvements, many of them just recently "catching up" to Zigbee. But luckily, lots of hubs support both protocols, so we don't have to worry about choosing one or the other. 
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Yes indeed.
Then, if both protocols are actual standards, the confusion I see in the product market is due to the Product Managers. Egad.
The past was OK. It was nice to walk into Radio Shack, buy an X10 module and controller, take it home and just plug it in.
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I'll be testing ZigBee soon.
This isn't the case on the 700 and up series anymore. They are multi-regional.
edlt: @bertabcd1234 beat me to it:
I find all this very interesting. I only took an interest in these "Son of WiFi" protocols this year.
The hub’s z-wave radio can adjust frequencies based on which region of the world it’s in, but it can still only use one z-wave frequency at a time.
And it’ll have to match the end devices sold for that market.
But it doesn't go away just because the standards evolve. Z-Wave is backwards and forwards compatible, and many people have older Z-Wave (and Zigbee, though changes have been less dramatic there) devices. Z-Wave 300-series is still pretty common (and I've seen a couple people here with 100-series devices!), and many readily available devices are still probably 500-series. There are some 700-series devices and a growing number of 800-series devices, so this will likely gradually change.
Nut not everyone is going to upgrade all their devices just because they exist, and having a shiny new 800-series controller like a C-8 hub doesn't eliminate their quirks.
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Well, by the same token, X10 devices are still available. Brand new. In certain circumstances they're all you need.
What was it (and when) that prompted the development of ZWave?
Look up the history of ZenSys.
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The world is not run just by engineers, thankfully I think. Many of the non-compatible products available in the market were designed by engineers who didn't care to follow the standard specification, but told the marketing people to call them Zigbee anyway. It's not all on the Product Managers at all. Without a viable business model, none of this happens at all. And left to the engineers, that usually doesn't happen.
Neither Z-Wave nor Zigbee has a true "standard", although they have relatively strong specifications. Silicon Labs won't allow manufacturers to purchase Z-Wave silicon without achieving Certification by the Z-Wave Alliance. While this certification process is not an ironclad protection of conformance, it is a pretty good test of interoperability. No such enforcement mechanism exists for Zigbee. We see more variation of interoperability with Zigbee devices than we do with Z-Wave. Products bearing the Z-Wave mark have been certified (else the Z-Wave Alliance would chase them down).
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In America, the Engineering profession died 20 years ago (I understand not all of us see it this way). That was when Product Management changed hands. We live in a "Press every button and see what happens" world now. We think cell phones are computers and FB is the internet. Think: Max Headroom.
This is what I'm afraid of.
