For several years I've used Z-Wave devices to control Christmas lights around the house. It occurred to me that this probably wreaks a bit of havoc with the Z-Wave mesh what with them disappearing every January 2nd and not coming back until next Thanksgiving. They are old non-Plus devices anyway. Thinking of changing to some inexpensive Zigbee devices instead. Does this make sense or is it no big deal anyway? Thanks in advance.
As long as you have a strong mesh with either protocol, it shouldn't theoretically be a problem (especially if most of the rest of your Z-Wave devices are Plus). However, I would recommend removing the device from your network "politely" to avoid issues, even though I've heard of lots of people who don't and still don't have any (this would be the "Remove" option on the device page, followed by a Z-Wave exclusion that you'll likely have to do manually or the Zigbee reset that this process usually inflicts on the device by itself--as opposed to just unplugging the device and leaving it in your device list).
That being said, if I had to pick one of the two protocols that is less picky about this, I'd probably pick Zigbee. (Z-Wave Long Range, not being mesh, should also be better, but we aren't there yet.) Something like Wi-Fi would be even better, even though I'm normally not a huge fan of that protocol for home automation purposes, but I can't think of any Wi-Fi plugs off the top of my head that work natively with Hubitat.
This year, I'll be using a couple Z-Wave plugs I'll add for the occasion and then remove afterwards...I think. Or whatever spare devices I have around. Ha.
I would love to see some better options for this in hubitat.. there's a pain to remove and re-add devices to all the rules..
Option to replace removed device with a dummy device would be awesome instead of the need to go in to every single rule and change to a virtual dummy device, and then change back when device is added again.
I was trying to find info about the actual realistic range of Zigbee and this seemed like the best thread to piggy back on since it would also be seasonal for me. I got some Wifi plugs but the one in the garage has a hard time staying connected. My Zwave devices in the garage seem fine but have repeaters near by.
I have ZERO Zigbee devices. What kind of range could I theoretically get if I add one or two plugs? Typical US house construction, wood and drywall. I think its around 30-40ft from the hub to the outlet in the garage.
Only looking at Zigbee for the price. I could go Zwave and I know that will work out there but don't really want to pay $25+ per outlet unless I have to.
Not the same use case, but I have a Zigbee contact sensor mounted outdoors underneath my mailbox; it's about 80 feet from the nearest Zigbee routers inside my brick/aluminum sided house. It's been100% reliable.
That still helps. I just always see people saying they need multiple ZigBee repeaters but I suspect those people on here have much larger houses than me. I just measured to be sure and it is definitely right around 40ft to where the plug would go. I will give it a shot, can always utilize the free returns on amazon if it doesn't work out.