Z-Wave: Why It Remains Such A Vitally Influential Element Of The Smart Home

Over the past five years or so, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple HomeKit have tended to get the most attention as the key platforms in today’s smart home. While their importance is indisputable, it’s easy to ignore the early protocols that have played a crucial role in developing the smart home. One could strongly argue that without these early protocols that facilitated wireless compatibility and connectivity in the early days of the smart home, the overall industry would not be in the advanced state it is today.

Z-Wave is perhaps the most venerable of all the early protocols in the smart home that remains extraordinarily relevant today. Developed by a Danish company called Zensys in 1999, it arrived in the United States in 1999. Z-Wave is a wireless protocol that enables connectivity within the smart home, and its popularity is hard to challenge. Even with the rise of Amazon, Google and Apple (to a lesser extent) smart speakers, Z-Wave has flourished over the past two decades. It is estimated that there are globally more than 100 million Z-Wave devices currently installed in smart homes, with nearly 3,500 Z-Wave-supported devices populating a wide range of devices to select from. Z-Wave’s value proposition has always been built around its ability to consume less power than a traditional WiFi connection but with a significantly wider coverage range than Bluetooth. Z-Wave utilizes lower-energy signals to connect from device to device.

Why is Z-Wave so important in the smart home?

The core principle of any smart home is having every device (and even appliances) do work instead of the user. Lights can be accessed and enabled remotely, heating and air conditioning can operate independently, and doors can be equipped with sensors to detect who is entering and leaving a room and building. The security aspects are profound.

SOURCE: Z-Wave Alliance (www.zwavealliance.org)

Z-Wave is a wireless communications protocol designed specifically for device automation in the home. Using low-energy radio waves at the 800–900MHz frequency level, Z-Wave can be thought of as a mesh network that enables consistent and low-latency transmissions of small data packets. One of the highly-valued features of Z-Wave is interoperability, which means that certified Z-Wave devices are compatible with each other, regardless of the manufacturer.

Easy installation, low power consumption, lower interference, security, low cost and its open-source heritage are also among the long list of benefits that Z-Wave devices enjoy. One of the chief complaints from smart home aspirants is that it’s simply too tricky setting up a smart home device. Z-Wave employs a feature called SmartStart that allows manufacturers to perform all the necessary device configurations before the product is shipped out from the factory. Simple QR codes enable the gateway or router in the home to know that a smart home device is being added to the network.

Low power consumption and low interference are also hallmarks of Z-Wave solutions. Many smart home devices such as window sensors, garage door openers, and door locks, don’t operate continuously. Z-Wave technology is optimized for battery-powered devices, warranting lower power consumption and long battery life. It is not unheard of for a Z-Wave sensor to operate for as long as a decade on a single battery. That’s a godsend for homeowners who don’t want to repeatedly replace batteries on hard-to-access window sensors.

While Z-Wave devices operate in the 800–900MHz frequency may seem to be an unnecessary technical detail for the average user, it’s quite essential to know. This band benefits from not being impacted, from an interference standpoint, with WiFi and Bluetooth which typically operate at “busy” 2.4GHz frequencies. Fewer network “traffic jams” make Z-Wave devices much more robust and less likely to get disconnected.

Lastly, security is a significant advantage of Z-Wave devices. The protocol has an integrated Security-2 framework which allows all internal communications to be safely encrypted and connected to the cloud via a highly secure tunnel.

Z-Wave Plus delivers even more value

In 2013, Z-Wave Plus was announced, providing new features and enhanced inoperability standards. Certified devices designed to support Z-Wave Plus offer many advantages, including a 50% improvement in battery life, 67% improvement in range, 250% more bandwidth, a standardized method for Over-The-Air (OTA) firmware updates and reliability enhancements around self-healing and fault tolerance.

Across the spectrum of homeowners, consumers, service providers and device integrators, Z-Wave Plus allows shorter and easier installations, longer battery life and more robust operation. These appealing benefits keep Z-Wave as the most popular class of devices used in today’s smart home.

Some closing thoughts

To drill down on the relevance and future of Z-Wave, I had the opportunity to speak with Mitchell Klein, Executive Director at the Z-Wave Alliance, on my SmartTechCheck podcast. During the podcast, we discussed a variety of insights provided by the Wave Alliance’s recent 2022 State of the Ecosystem report, such as the top 10 DIY devices used in security and home control systems, the top 5 Z-Wave devices owned, the broad scope of the group’s membership and what Klein believes are the chief opportunities for Z-Wave beyond the smart home.

Klein was also clear about reiterating the Z-Wave Alliance’s position on other new smart home protocols, such as Matter and Thread, designed to promote better ease of use among disparate smart devices via seamless inoperability with Amazon and Google and Apple ecosystem solutions. Klein was unequivocal in his view that the Z-Wave Alliance sees these new protocols as welcome and beneficial to promoting the overall smart home industry. For consumers, this is indeed reassuring news since the installed base of Z-Wave certified device installations is enormous, and initiatives like Matter and Thread would look significantly less attractive without Z-Wave as part of the overall smart home ecosystem.

2022 promises to be a banner year for small home installations. Without question, the pandemic has been a significant tailwind for the smart home category. The lockdowns encouraged more homeowners to tip their toes in the smart device “waters” with smart locks, window sensors, thermostats, cameras and smart appliances (just to name a small handful of devices). Z-Wave’s continued health and vitality will play a vital role in maintaining the overall momentum of the smart home space, and its ongoing contribution is more important now than ever before.

Mark Vena is the CEO and Principal Analyst at SmartTech Research based in Silicon Valley. As a technology industry veteran for over 25 years, Mark covers many consumer tech topics, including PCs, smartphones, smart home, connected health, security, PC and console gaming, and streaming entertainment solutions. Mark has held senior marketing and business leadership positions at Compaq, Dell, Alienware, Synaptics, Sling Media and Neato Robotics. Mark has appeared on CNBC, NBC News, ABC News, Business Today, The Discovery Channel and other media outlets. Mark’s analysis and commentary have appeared on Forbes.com and other well-known business news and research sites. His comments about the consumer tech space have repeatedly appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, TechNewsWorld and other news publications. Mark has also provided contributions to venerable Parks Associates, the leading research firm in the consumer technology space.

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