In a rare move, Apple, Amazon, and Google just announced a major partnership

Organisation Press&Media
21

No - ZWave is a protocol - just like ZigBee (for example).

Implementors, such as Hue (using ZigBee), or other systems that may use ZWave or ZigBee, or BLE, or the many (many!) other protocols out there may choose to lock their system to a cloud based implementation, but that is not driven by the protocol.

22

And how could you ensure (if the z-wave chip is open for other implementors) that all of them uses the “standard” protocol and they don’t lock down their devices?

23

This is what the ZWave Alliance does - it tests devices to ensure that they support the protocol, and they only certify devices that pass the tests.

Then it would not be a ZWave device - it would use a custom protocol and clearly would not work with other ZWave devices.

24

The standards body owns the trademarked name Z-Wave. The other chip makers cannot use that name without being certified as being compatible.

25

I got a good laugh from this comment in the Reddit thread I was just reading about this same topic:

I suspect there will be Lots of white cats and evil laughter at those meetings.

:rofl:

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26

So
 does Z-Wave become the new Betamax/HD-DVD?

I haven’t yet installed a Z-Wave switch for every light or rollershutter. And now I am wondering if I should invest more in Z-Wave.
Even though the new standard won’t arrive any time soon.

27

Z-Wave is being open sourced too allowing others to manufacture Z-Wave chips. That should hopefully lower the cost of Z-Wave devices making them more competitive.

28

No - ZWave and ZigBee, along with many others are competing protocols. Both have good traction in the market and neither is likely to go anywhere soon. Both have also been around for the better part of 20 years. I think you’re safe with either.

The “new standard” is not replacing either of these or other protocols. It is a supplementary protocol to support interoperability and won’t replace any of the low level protocols.

I wouldn’t necessarily rely on that. Cost is not really driven by the silicon and if I look at the current cost of silicon for ZWave compared to ZigBee, there’s not a lot of difference and ZigBee is already supported by multiple silicon providers. If I look at ZWave chip costs compared to the Silabs ZigBee costs, ZWave is currently cheaper (both are of course Silabs products).

There are plenty of other costs in bringing a product to market - testing, certification, ZWave/ZigBee Alliance fees etc.

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29

I actually agree with that.

LOL

You left out “ridiculous mark-up.” I would imagine that most of those costs amount to pennies when they are spread out over the numbers of units sold.

I am sorry, but given their past behavior, I just have zero faith in any of the companies named in the article to do anything decent. I would love to be proved wrong, but I don’t think I will be.

30

Interestingly, Microsoft is not a member of the coalition so the EEE reference isn’t necessarily apropos.

And while these companies have individually done unconscionable things in the past in their own self interest, in this coalition there is no one company that has an out sized power. They can’t force something that will be in their own individual interest to the exclusion of the others.

In addition, the standard is being developed completely out in the open. No surprises to anyone. The specification will be open source and it can be used by anyone without a license fee.

Make no mistake about it, they will all get plenty of benefit from the standard but the dynaics are simply not present for any one vendor to use this as a way to take over the word. At least not in terms of interoperability. I’m sure they are hoping to get use this as a baseline so that their various voiec assistants are competing in other areas rather than in which devices it supports.

31

Well, insert {underhanded business practice} instead (walled garden, proprietary lock in, software patents, planned obsolescence. etc.). The list goes on and on. Big businesses of all kinds nowadays seem to be operating mostly on the old Carnegie (or was it Rockefeller?) model of “competition is a sin” instead of simply providing superior products and/or services than their competitors.

It is these facts that make me (very) cautiously optimistic. Some good may come out of it, on accident, as a side benefit. :smiley:

I will still be watching these scoundrels like a hawk, however. :smiley:

32

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/19/21029661/zwave-open-standard-radios-smart-home-multiple-vendors-silicon-labs

Silicon Labs will surely want to have a z-wave chip in every Google Home and/or Amazon Dot/Echo.

33

I’m not sure what your point is here? This was a serious comment - the point being that this is not a smart home technology, but a mechanism for connecting technologies together.

Ho-hum


34

I guess that is where we missed each other. I guess you missed my theme through the whole thread, “lots of white cats and laughter”, etc. If I’m being serious too, you are probably right. :smiley:

But time will tell. Let’s meet back here in a few years or decades, and then we will know. But I have already seen this movie before (maybe not the exact same movie, so I could be wrong).

35

Yes, sorry, I’ve only flicked through the thread due to lack of time at the moment


Don’t get me wrong - I’m not particularly interested in this initiative at all. I think I’ve said either in this thread or elsewhere, but I don’t think at the moment this makes a lot of difference to OH. On of OHs main features is to provide interoperability between different systems, so in effect we already have this.

But yes, let’s see in a few years - maybe it might be useful :wink:

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