Zwave technology replacement

I have chosen to use as few WiFi devices as possible (unless I make them myself i.e. Arduino and even trying to avoid those) for many reasons.

  • Stop the clutter of my network
  • Many of these devices are ‘slow’ and adding more will just slow the network even more (devices have to wait their turn and if one or lots are ‘slow’ (i.e. 16mhz Arduinos)
  • WiFi can be MUCH less secure than ZWave and ZWave doesn’t interface on the same network as my financial files…
  • Have you seen the recent issues with IOT devices and security/viruses? Why would I want to include that on the same network that my data is on?

True, many of us have the time, money, knowledge, hardware to have a separate 2.4 and 5 networks, VLANs, and other solutions to separate networks and wireless signals. I do/will, do you? Do you trust commercial companies to worry about your security? I don’t.

If someone wants to hack my ZWave network, by all means, go ahead and turn my lights off and on… I don’t know that I will ever trust the security of a physical lock to ANY electronic device whether it’s WiFi, ZWave or other. (And yeah, you can pick a lock, I know.)

One year ago I did the same. Before that, at home, I had 2 wireless network, one was for me and different devices and the second one only for the smart-sensors, cameras and so on. But when I tried ZWave, I’ve started to slowly shift from the WiFi connection to the radio. In the beginning, the main problem was with a connection, because of different sensors/hardware manufacturers, but I solved it with kaa internet of things platform. For the moment I have only home hub / switch and huge set of sensors around the house. And everything works well!