Razberry 2 vs Z-Wave Aeon Labs Z-Stick for new open hab

I’m moving away from Z-Wave Vera Plus to open hab and I have a few z-wave devices. Which controller board do I buy for Raspberry Pi 3? From what I’ve read, it seams to between “Razberry 2 - pi gpio daughter card gen5” and “Z-Wave Aeon Labs Z-Stick USB Controller - Gen5”. Any opinions please?

Depends on your requirements!

For example if you want to use onboard BT you might have troubles if you decide to use raZberry. My setup is a pi3 with raZberry (but the smaller one - before V2 was released) right now. I do not need BT so i disabled BT in /boot/config.txt

I have no experience with other transmitters like the Aeon USB Stick. But maybe some others here will give you advise to.

Furthermore i like the raZberry because its installed inside the housing and takes no more space outside like a stick. But this is just an argument on optic.

BG Harry

@CodingHarry Thanks replying so quick Harry, Whats onboard BT? Yeah having it in the housing is a advantage but thinking further, it will be out of the way anyway.

BT => Bluetooth
Pi3 has integrated bluetooth but as i can read in many threads it would not be possible to use it parallel wtih raZberry.

Here is the reason why (sry it is german but well explained):
https://wiki.fhem.de/wiki/Raspberry_Pi_3:_GPIO-Port_Module_und_Bluetooth

So because u need to use uart0 from gpio pins for serial communication (raZberry <-> openhab) the bluetooth function have to be disabled because it would also use uart0.

But with some hacks it should be possible to use both as described in article above. I never tried it!

One comment on Bluetooth and the RPI3: Bluetooth appears to interfere with Wifi (at least it did for me). If you search for this you’ll find many others with the same issue. I don’t know if it is a universal problem or not with the RPI3. I was forced to disable the Wifi and use the LAN cable in order to use Bluetooth. I use the UZB stick, not the RAZ card, so I didn’t have to deal with the UART issue.