Zwave or Wifi

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1

I did a little bit of searching and was not able to find any current thinking on this topic.

I'm new to ST (Recent Wink Defector) and am also looking at Hubitat as a longer term solution...

Wondering what the latest thinking is around zwave vs wifi.

Looks like you can purchase a decent Wifi switch(with Dimmer) for about $20 (Kasa HS220, a zooz Zen-22 for about $27 and an Inovelli Black for about $31 (Currently out of stock).

I honestly have "no dog in this fight" and am simply trying to figure out where to jump off/in at this point.

Thoughts and feedback would be appreciated.

2

All wifi implementations are proprietary, and most are cloud dependent at some level. If you go wifi you need to be OK with cloud control, or maybe/maybe not being able to control the wifi device locally long term.

How big a deal that is, only you can answer.

Zwave is always local.

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3

And take the risk that the cloud connection / support will disappear at some point, leaving you without any communication with the device, which becomes a useless rock. Been there, done that.

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4

For what my two cents are worth... I agree with the above information. One major consideration or selling point to me, switching to Hubitat was local control. With my novice perspective, I wanted to retain as much localized control and avoid internet dependance as possible. If your home or facility has power to operate the lights etc, it has power to operate Hubitat. Recent power outages in our area helped solidify my position with the reliability and strength of Hubitat's local abilities. For those reasons, I have a combination of Zigbee and Z-wave devices . (Full disclosure, I do have a very few wifi devices as well which are integrated via Alexa)
With that said, this is very much a personal decision as you will find pros and cons for all platforms.

5

With that being said, some WiFi devices are fully local. For example Shelly relays, or an Arduino sensor that is brought into Hubitat via HubDuino.

I guess it comes down to how many devices your Wifi router (or mesh) can handle.

Personally, I have preferred z-wave/lutron caseta/zigbee for almost all of my devices.

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7

Possibly. Although I think that zwave-lr is a major step in the right direction.

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8

Maybe, but not in any amount of time I care about. I expect an HA switch/device to last ~7 years. 7 years=infinity when it comes to technology.

Zwave will 100% be around and supported in that timeframe.

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9

For sure. Heck, there are still people integrating X-10 switches into Hubitat and Home Assistant.

10

Following the majority of the advice here - I ended up getting rid of all of the wifi components in my HA setup and purchasing a Hubitat hub

Got it all set up and am not looking back - Hubitat simply rocks!

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12

Maybe. :man_shrugging:

My crystal ball isn't as good as yours I guess. :slight_smile:

14

I still support Windows 95 on some old industrial devices. I can make anything last 7 years - so it was a safe number to use. :slight_smile:

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15

:eyes: :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

16

Z-Wave is adding Long Range as a firmware update.. Z-Wave also has full IP support for Z-Wave LAN/WiFi connected devices (something other protocols are going to do some day :wink:)

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