ZWave or Zigbee? That is the Question.

If you are building a smart home at some point you will ask yourself or random Internet forums whether you should invest in Zwave or Zigbee.

And after being berated for not searching the forums first, you will be told Zwave cause Zigbee sucks, or Zigbee cause Zwave Sucks, or neither cause they both suck and Wifi is the best.

But the answer is a little more complicated. So lets try and answer Smart Home's oldest question. And hopefully by the end you will have enough information that you can determine the right answer for you.

Who am I?

My Name is Jeff. I am an DIY-er and Automator of boring things. And, of course, a huge Home Assistant fan. Oh, I also live in a house that tweets.

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[MrSupersidewinder]

I went Zigbee with my first HA build in March 2022. It's fast, reliable, affordable, simple... I started with 8 plug in switched outlets that are also repeaters. Very happy with my choice...

[BradClarke]

I started out with an Echo 4 and a zigbee smart bulb.
I continued on with zigbee devices as I moved to more advanced home automation platforms. The cost of Zwave devices at the time were also much higher, so I stayed with zigbee.

[rsluggy]

I have Zwave, Zigbee and WiFi devices in my HA. I like Zigbee for how quick and easy it is to add devices and they do tend to be inexpensive. It was easier (cheaper) to extend my Zigbee network out to my workshop, which is 100ish feet from the house. I have found that Zigbee power switching devices are far less likely to have power monitoring, though I am not sure why this is. For devices where I need power monitoring (mostly for ensuring a pump is running or a filament bulb is not burned out), I have had to use Zwave or WiFi (Tasmota) devices. Some of the most helpful devices, like scene controllers, also tend to be Zwave.

[PaulFletter]

Nice breakdown of the differences between the two protocols. I celebrate diversity by running both ZWave and Zigbee on Home Assistant. My situation is more a result of the mish-mosh of devices that had on hand that i wanted to connect, rather than choosing the devices based on the protocol's benefit, like zwave for security or zigbee for cost. I know there's a battery drain consideration, too, when choosing one over the other. Thanks for another insightful post!

[kodeypatterson]

The likelihood of a “Bad actor” even knowing you have a local zigbee network is about as an unlikely scenario as it gets. Let alone that person knowing how to take control of the device.

[sekritskworl-sekrit_studios]

Interesting.

I need to learn how to set up a dashboard. Do you have a video for that?

[chrisrnz]

That shirt sums up my entire Z-Wave experience. Sensors are fine but any device that "does" something e.g. a Smart Switch is next to useless. Wrong reporting of state, unresponsive actions etc. Maybe it's a brand thing (they're all Aeotec), don't know, but my experience with Z-Wave has been terrible. Even with repeaters and hard-wired devices everywhere, so I'm sure it's not a mesh/signal thing.

[chrislauyp]

Hi Jeff, thanks for the informative content, particularly learning the different territories using different frequencies.

I am about to purchase the ultralog u-bolt pro with a ZOOZ USB 700 SERIES Z-WAVE PLUS S2 STICK ZST10 700 (both z-wave alliance listed for US, CND and AUZ). The system is to be integrated to a Home Assistant OS instance. But I live in HK and not the USA!

So my concern now is 1) would the config work in HK? ... as there could possibly be interference with over devices in the same frequency band making my system unstable; 2) possibly it will be illegal if I am interfering gov agency/public services frequency range (i guess I have to find that out myself!!!)

Jeff (or anyone who knows), do you think Ultralog u-bolt + Zooz coordinator + HA-OS work in HK, outside of the legal issues?

Hope the question makes sense!!

[EmilePolka]

Zigbee still for me, because its cheaper and wider range of IoT devices mainly tuya that basically brings majority of these stuff

[rodneysmith]

Thanks for sorting out the Z's for me!

[TheSkepticSkwerl]

I think matter is going to win in 10 years. But the others should last a lifetime. What's gonna suck is having to replace an entire home because your hub breaks and they don't make them anymore.

[pokeysplace]

I'm using both as somethings are just not available in both protocols. Over the years I've had issue with both... Z-Wave light bulbs factory resetting during brown outs and a new zigbee shade resetting when the battery ran low (8 days of standby with solar charging). Zigbee has not been as reliable in my install and I'd likely go with Z-Wave, WiFi and then zigbee when shopping for a new device. WiFi isn't really a battery powered option though.

[truckerallikatuk]

I run zigbee and wifi devices. And I've yet to hear a convincing argument in favour of matter.

[stanp]

I started with Smartthings Hub, along with their motion and door sensors as well as their buttons and some bulbs, all ZigBee devices. These moved over smoothly when I moved to Home Assistant and have been trouble free. I have added other vendors devices, ZigBee as well and they work, albeit I had to modify some of my Node-Red flows as the returned values were different.

My only Z-Wave device is an Intermatic pool controller and funny enough, that has been my only one that has had some interference issues in the past. Solved it by moving the raspberry pi that was sitting next to the NUC that runs HA and has the ZigBee/Z-WAVE radio. That solved that problem.

[vetsus]

i use both. and i do like both... the only downside to mine is the older z-wave devices.... i'm unable to upgrade them to the latest firmware and so i'm unable to take advantage of all the new, "cool", features available on the latest and greatest. however... i really do like the cheaper prices of zigbee devices. for simple functions like turning things on and off... they work quickly and don't cost a ton of money. however, if you want cool things like.... power management.... zwave seems to have the edge when it comes to price. and devices like that are really nice for things like... older tv's that aren't smart.... you can monitor if you left it on and turn it off remotely. not really the 'ideal' thing for a tv, but it works.. and providing you don't leave it off for an extended period of time.. it won't really hurt it. other things i like, either, for is my modem for instance... because it's provided to me from my internet provider, i cannot schedule a restart.... however, i can use either a zwave or zigbee device to do it for me using home asssistant... and because it's completely controlled locally, even when the internet goes out it still can turn the device back on after a specified amount of time which would be required if you wanted to clear the cache on your device...

[BeardedTinker]

LoRa all the way :) Great video Jeff!!!!

[louisvl]

either way, im hardwiring my home renovations electricals. still not clear what the universal standard is gonna win

[leoc]

we have quite a fiew z-wave switches at our store

[EsotericArctos]

If you are choosing Z-Wave or Zigbee, then it might be better to choose Matter compatible. If you have a Z-Wave network setup, it won't suddenly stop working, nor is Z-Wave about to disappear anytime soon. What is setup today will keep working into the future until the electronics or hub dies.
I would say, go for what sensors you need in the price point you want and have both Zigbee and Z-Wave if you can. So I guess I agree with choose the best sensors for the situation and have all things on the hub :)

[Netz]

Zigbee is not only superior in real deployments, but open source. You buy a device and it works. With Z-Wave since every country has different frequencies, good luck if you purchased online a device that was for another country, or they sent you another one accidentally, that alone plus being more expensive means it's doomed to fail. Even more now because ZigBee will eventually be the Matter protocol, which is what all technology companies are investing in as the future protocol for home automation.

This means all your Zigbee devices will just work with a simple update and your Z-Wave devices will be left in the trash. In 2023, it is more than clear that Zigbee is the option now. At the beginning, a few years back, Zigbee devices had interoperability issues, cheap quality and not easy to find, that is not the case anymore. Zigbee is far more reliable, more devices available, and is a future investment. Keep using your Z-Wave devices and network, but if you have to buy new ones, create a new network or expand your existing one, you should seriously consider moving to Zigbee.