Best Z-Wave Stick for OpenHab

Like what? Matter?

I was frustrated with pairing issues, having to reset devices to re-pair them again, to reset sticks or razberry board and then to re-add all devices again and the need to wait until new devices are being supported andā€¦andā€¦andā€¦
I have replaced all devices with either Shelly (dimmer, roller-shutter, relays) or HomematicIP (thermostat and smoke detectors). Those two bindings are absolutely great!. Since then absolutely NO problems and I have never regret my decision

To directly answer your question, Iā€™ve heard no further word about 700-series devices. If anywhere, itā€™d be in this thread.

Matter isnā€™t ready for primetime yet, but I and others are very hopeful for it.

I havenā€™t had the same issues that @Oliver2 has had, but I only have four Z-Wave devices: a door lock, two sensors, and a light switch. As things are, I donā€™t see myself adding more.

I recently bought a Broadlink RM4 Mini that came with a temperature/humidity sensor. Itā€™s USB-powered and cost less than a Z-Wave sensor, so Iā€™m perfectly happy to use it as a sensor even if I never use it as a remote control.

Also, TP-Link now has a light switch with a motion sensor and ambient-light sensor. Itā€™s not yet supported in OH, but if/when it is then Iā€™ll put one in every room, along with an RM4 Mini.

That would leave me with just my door lock, and Iā€™ve no reason to change that for as long as it keeps working.

Is Home Assistant achieving their 700 series controller compatibility by using the Z/IP API? Does anyone know?

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No they are not. They have reverse engineered. A friend even joked that the team does not even know or care what Z/IP is.

The binding definitely does NOT support Z/IP. @chris knows what Z/IP is and will not support it.

Whoever said he does not know what Z/IP is is clueless. I do not know the status on 700 series controllers here though.

Bruce the question and reply was about Home Assistant and how they have built support.

Unlike Chris they think they can ignore the way the standard is and dream that it will all be OK. At some point you would think they will get broken by some change or will be in trouble with zwave alliance. They certainly will never be certified unless the standards are changed.

Sadly Z/IP is not exactly within the ethos of OpenHAB so hard to see how the binding can move forward. As a few of the commercial offerings now use Z/IP I would think some would be happy to have no competition from opensource so it does seem that any change is less and less likely.

Sorry, I misunderstood.

The 700 Series USB stick vendors are guessing too? Perhaps, like SAMBA, there was reverse engineering. SAMBA was so good Microsoft used their documentation of Windows behavior.

Fibaro is now using Z/IP on their controllers. Their lite version is a 700 chip so could only be certified if it used Z/IP the HC3 is a 500 which they could have certified without Z/IP but they have chosen to use the stack across their products.

I would think Hubitat are using Z/IP as they are using a 700 chip and are certified but if anyone can confirm this it would probably tell us where the standard is going.

Not sure what Aeon is thinking with their products but as they do not sell the software part possibly they do not care.

I have not looked at Homeseer or Homey to see what they are doing.

While there were no certified products I thought they might reverse the decision but as more of the commercial products adopt Z/IP it does not look like we will see a published serial interface standard for 700 and beyond but Chris might know more.

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Can you, or someone, elaborate on how the Z/IP interface is different from the previous Serial Interface regarding implementation? What would OpenHab have to do to get it working?

What advantage does Z/IP offer that made Z-Wave think it was was their best option going forward?

That is too big a question to answer on a forum.

Are you seriously interested in digging in and understanding?

My understanding based on whatā€™s been written is that the biggest difference is the serial interface allows openHAB to communicate directly withe the Zwave controller.

Z/IP uses TCP/IP and a separate bridge between OH and the serial controller. And the code to work with that bridge is not free and open source so it cannot be included as part of openHAB.

Rich as you say the licence is the crux.

The devkit is required and a developer can not distribute the product other than for testing or as samples until the ā€œproductā€ is certified. The software components can be distributed after certification as part of the ā€œproductā€.

Supporting it on all of the platforms openHAB supports would be a huge task and third party tie in is against the ethos of openHAB so it would have to be a separate affair.

Z/IP uses UDP rather than TCP but that is a minor issue compared to the nature of the interface which is not as simple as you might imagine. You could use one of a couple of other libraries from the SDK to provide a simpler TCP interface but none are nice clean REST interface. There is also a C API exposed by Z/IP.

Z/IP uses what is currently a similar serial API to interface to the controller. This is what the Home Assistant team are using but how long it will be similar for is hard to say.

It probably wouldnā€™t do much good, but it sounds like we all need to start complaining to Silicon Labs and their Z-wave Alliance for not providing their own Z-Wave integration for OpenHab yet.

Here is one 700 Series I have that is certified and uses serial.

https://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/4260?selectedFrequencyId=-1

And you are using that in OpenHab without obvious problems?

That is a bridge controller so could only be certified as a hardware bridge controller. Not that hard as Silicon provide the pre-certified HEX firmware as part of the devkit so all they have to do is build the hardware to meet the hardware standards. It is no different to a UZB7 or Aeon Labs 700 series products.

I am using it successfully with zwavejs and a different free system.

That still functions over serial the same as my 500 Series controllers. It is certified and outputs serial that can be used by other free software.

In fact the Alliance calls it a static USB controller USB == serial

Yes the serial interface can be reverse engineered and much of it is the same as the last 500 series SDK that was a published version.