Hi, I want to buy z-wave controller for my home automation . I gone through the net and I found Z-Stick Gen5 . But as i am new to home automation, so not know whether this stick will works india , as i am living in india. Because In India Z-wave frequency range is 865Mz. I have read somewhere that Z-Stick Gen5 works with only US Frequencies i.e(905/908MHz). So confused on whether i buy it or not.
Please help, any other better solution or option can also be helpful.
India should use the EU modules, but the frequency is slightly different (865.2MHz). I’m not sure exactly how this is configured, but I would assume that you should be able to find ZWave supplier in India who can provide the devices for you.
There are z-wave suppliers in India but you have to verify that the particular things you are ordering are all the correct frequency. It is only recently that z-wave devices using the official Indian frequency have been available. Most suppliers were bringing in EU frequency items. (US-frequency items won’t generally work well because of Indian mobile phone frequency overlap/interference.)
A couple of other things to factor in here. If your home is like most in India, the interior walls are cement. This will really affect the range of your devices in the z-wave mesh. Battery-powered devices/sensors are not relays in the network, so you’ll need powered z-wave devices to act as relays. That usually will be light switches etc. You’d probably want to have no more than one cement wall between a switch and its nearest neighbor in the mesh. (You might get away with two cement walls, but be prepared.)
Which comes to another issue–the electrical wiring in your home. Every z-wave switch that I know of requires a real neutral wire – i.e., there are 3 wires involved. Many Indian homes do not have this type of wiring - they have only two-wire with NO neutral.
Hope this helps.
To be clear the switches are two wires, but usually the switches are clubbed together with a plug in socket which is 3 wire ie earth, neutral and live.
The GSM frequency is the same between India and US, but LTE isn’t. Does LTE interfere with the USA Zwave devices?
GSM Frequency bands are NOT the same between India and US. Perhaps you have a tri-band or quad-band phone which works with multiple bands automatically. The official GSM bands in India are GSM 900 and GSM 1800. GSM 900 uses 880.0 – 915.0 for mobile to base communications. US z-wave devices are smack in that range at 905/908. So a “proper” Indian mobile phone and US z-wave devices are likely to interfere. EU uses same GSM bands as India, hence EU z-wave frequencies do not overlap with “proper” Indian phones.
Official US GSM are GSM 850 and GSM 1900. (These do NOT overlap with the Indian z-wave frequency).
Not sure what you mean by “clubbed together with a plug in socket”. The z-wave switches which I am familiar with all use the neutral wire. This article may help you Vesternet 2-wire vs 3-wire. The z-wave switches I am familiar with do not use the connector block as shown but actively plug all three wires into the switch.
Thanks for clearing that up on the phone bands.
On the subject of 2-wire vs 3-wire, the light switches are 2-wire ones. But take a look at this sample image from the internet
Most wall mounts have the light switches next to 3-pin socket. And the 3-pin socket has a neutral wire like so (click on link below)
http://www.electro-tech-online.com/attachments/housewiring-jpg.51473/
Cant the neutral from the socket be used with the switch?
On the subject of home automation devices, the Z-wave devices on indian frequency would be difficult to come by. How is the Zigbee in that aspect. Is there a different Zigbee frequency between India and US?
You should speak to an electrician. Certainly in the UK and Europe, the answer would generally be NO - you can not mix lighting and socket circuits. India might be different of course…
Is that because they may be on different circuits?
On the subject of Zigbee wikipedia says that the Zigbee frequency is 915MHz in the US. Is the Linear HUSBZB-1 on 915MHz frequency or 2.4GHz?
Yes - in the UK lighting and sockets should be on different circuits.
Zigbee uses 2.4GHz world wide. There are some channels in other bands but I’m not aware of them being used anywhere…
Zigbee seems a better choice over Z-wave then as far as worldwide compatibility is concerned. Are there any battery operated motion-sensors on Zigbee? In understand Xiaomi dont work with Linear HUSBZB-1.
For power connected devices, i think Sonoff is the best choice since it is voltage agnostic.
Maybe, but that’s only really an issue if you’re moving regions. If you use mains devices, then socket types etc also add compatibility issues if you’re moving regions, so I don’t think I would base a decision on the fact that Zigbee uses a common frequency…
Both have good and bad points. ZWave will typically have better range, and has better support for battery devices (IMHO). Zigbee is less interoperable compared to ZWave where you can be pretty certain that 2 ZWave devices will work together.
Yes - you should be able to find some. Hue have one, Develco have one and I’m sure there are many others out there.
I’m with @Chris — you need to speak with an electrican who has some test instruments to determine exactly what you are dealing with in your dwelling.
Another specific thing to have the electrician check is where you have a fixture which has multiple switch-points (ie an N-way situation) – classic example a stairway light which has a switch at both the top and the bottom of the stairs. In the US anyway, there are many ways in N-ways can be wired legally, but some of the possible wiring schemes are not possible to setup with z-wave switches (that I know of, anyway). One of my two interior stairways with an N-way works fine with z-wave switches, the other does not work at all because it was wired using one of the incompatible wiring schemes. So if you have multiple N-way fixtures, you’ll want to know about each of them.
I came across this company, who are developing home automation products in India. It seems that they are using 865MHz in their HUB which connects to the WIFI. Is that a standard frequency for Z-wave/Zigbee?
They have some nice videos one of which shows the setup of indian switches.
865 is Indian z-wave frequency. It is not any of the Zigbee frequencies. Looking at the Oakter product set, they do not say z-wave specifically, but they are using the z-wave (Indian frequency).
The wiring video clearly indicates the need for a real NEUTRAL line. (Hence your need for an electrician). Whether the Oakter products are open to other software like OpenHab is an another question. It seems doubtful. There no mention of a web interface. (If there was, you might be able to do something using OpenHab http binding. )
But it seems their phone app is your UI to it. Since they talk specifically about controlling your devices from anywhere in the world, it sound like everything goes through Oakter’s servers on the backend and any automation you set up is controlled thru Oakter’s servers.
They don’t say to much about automation – some implication that you can do time of day rules for ON/OFF and temperature ranges on their thermostat. Mostly it is you doing remote control using your phone.
The setup for Oakter hub makes it clear everything is going thru their cloud. Adding a new device video is somewhat suggestive — if really z-wave, when you add device thru your phone, it puts the controller in the hub into inclusion mode. When you plug in the new device - it gets picked up by the controller. I suspect strongly you can only include Oakter devices. A standalone controller like the an Indian version the z-stick might actually include their devices, but since they are not in @chris z-wave database, OpenHab is unlikely to be able to connect to them. Vendor lock-in to Oakter pretty much.
Where are you in India ? If you are near Chennai, you might go see Drasis Automation. I was in their office a few years ago and they are pretty knowledgeable.
I contacted Oakter technical support and this was their reply,
No we don't use Z-wave. The protocol is RF at 865.2 Mhz, its similar z-wave but not zwave.
Looks like they use some proprietary protocol with their gateway. Seems like a dead end. Thanks, I will look up Drasis Automation website.
You could also try INKA - I had some contact with the guys there a while back. They were using OH and mostly Z-Wave so they might also be worth contacting.
Looks like the INKA guys have Indian frequency z-wave AND their Fibaro dimmer 2 (for example) says No NEUTRAL required – works with 2 or 3 wires.
Hi @chris
Anyone tried this Z-stick for India (865.2MHz)?
Will it work for 865MHz Z-wave slave device like https://www.amazon.in/Fibaro-Roller-Shutter-Controller-865-2Mhz/dp/B00HSICQ4U/ ???