Z-Wave Frequency

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1

Hi

I live in South Africa and our Z-Wave frequency is 868.4MHz, I think this is the same as the UK. I bought the "Europe" version of the Hubitat, which means it comes with a seperate USB Z-Wave stick. I currently only have Zigbee devices but was wanting to know? If I remove the USB Z-Wave stick, does it fall back to using the built in Z-Wave (C5 Hub). Which would mean it would use the US frequency. Besides this not been technically legal ( :zipper_mouth_face:) could I then purchase Z-Wave devices from US companies (220v support of course) and it should work.

Just asking otherwise probably better to find the same devices in the UK online stores.

2

868.4 is shared with China, Singapore , and South Africa.

868.4 China, Singapore, South Africa
868.40, 868.42, 869.85 CEPT Countries (Europe and other countries in region), French Guiana

Seems as if 858.4 opens generous buying options. :slight_smile: I don't understand the why behind the nuance of 848.4 vs 868.42.

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3

Yes it would. If you did this would you be breaking SA laws? In the UK you certainly would be breaking the law.

I suppose it depends on what you wish to do.

4

@bobbles

I think it would be better to get the Z-Wave equipment from the UK and China anyway as the 220v becomes a problem from the US anyway. I was more trying to understand the logic than wanting to break any laws, still think the different frequency's is a bit stupid.

5

If you remove the stick, the internal US frequency Z-Wave radio takes over. Due to the frequency band used for Z-Wave, the exact frequency selected varies by region of the world as determined by the RF licensing authorities in various countries. For example, Israel has its own frequency, no doubt due to possible interference with other allocated frequencies that pre-existed when Z-Wave came along. 868.4 is used in much of the world, including EU and UK/IRL, etc. The stick provided with our international products is itself frequency agile and can be changed, however this is not a very simple task.

Zigbee, on the other hand, uses the same frequencies worldwide. However, these are in the 2.4GHz band, and are subject to interference with other 2.4GHz radios, including WiFi.

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