jay (support) wrote:[url=https://forums.indigodomo.com/viewtopic.php?p=209245#p209245]we're quite surprised by the number of customers who seem to have totally missed Z-Wave support in Indigo years ago. We're hearing a lot to the effect of "what will Indigo do now that Insteon is dead"? We have not been reliant on Insteon as our primary technology for many years...
Jay, thanks for the input.
I have about 40-50 z-wave devices in my system. I'm VERY happy that I've been able to keep working with Indigo as the core of my HA architecture while branching out into Z-wave. IndigoDomo's great work and progress in this area enabled me to add door locks, thermostats, window shades, and other devices that would not have been possible otherwise.
So Z-wave is definitely good. I'm glad we have it. I'm glad Indigo supports it.
Does Z-wave "have legs" - i.e., can it serve as a base protocol to build upon? .... or more pragmatically, is it something that I can feel ok about buying and installing now with confidence it will function and serve my needs 5-10 yrs ahead? I see at least two distinct ways to approach that question:
1.
Is Z-wave (as a protocol) "good enough"? For me, some signs point to "no". We're getting towards 10 years into z-wave being "supported" to some degree in Indigo, but big important barriers remain :
A Z-wave network can only have 232 devices - that seems a bit like I'm heading down a protocol dead-end. Is 232 enough? It's a catch-22 answer - if z-wave got really popular, then that number almost certainly would NOT be enough for many households (including my own). Otoh, if z-wave remains a "niche" technology, then I'll probably not run hard into that limit.
Z-wave pays lip service to being "secure", but the reality of my experience is that
z-wave encryption is mostly vapor so far. .
Z-wave (the protocol) supposedly supports things like
over-the-air software updates. As devices become more sophisticated, this will become much more important. Today's reality for me is that I've not yet seen any updates that work with my devices nor within Indigo.
Z-wave hasn't tackled user convenience issues such as device inclusion. No two z-wave device types I've ever added to my system behaved the same way with regard to inclusion. 6 of the last 7 devices I've added to network took multiple retries, despite my following the instructions painstakingly. Sometimes network inclusion works, sometimes it simply does not. Half the time, I suspect I'm reading badly-translated instructions.
Z-wave sometimes claims to support advanced features (such as associations), but those features are almost never included in the docs/manuals available to "normal users". Want to program something like a z-wave scene controller to do something useful in your system? Good luck - you're left guessing or using trial and error to figure out what works and what doesn't.
Z-wave has the concept of "command classes" - ok, sounds good. However as a user, I feel like the implementation details leave a lot to be desired. There are standard command classes for lighting controls, but no two models of switch I've used thus far use the same way of controlling something simple like "ramp rate" or default on-level - instead each has it's own idiosyncratic ways. Every device seems to require half an hour of work to figure out how to
really get it to do what you want.
It took time and effort to get my z-wave devices included, encrypted (in a few cases), and set up. If I need to migrate to a different system or a different z-wave interface (z-stick), I have to start all the way over again from scratch. For some of my devices, I had so much trouble during the inclusion process, I had no choice but to bring the device near my z-stick for inclusion. Now those devices are screwed into my walls and doors throughout my house, so I'm looking at a multi-hour process if I need to migrate or reset my z-stick. Does this happen often? Fortunately, not. Is this a problem that should be solved by now? Yes.
2.
Is Z-wave going to win out in the market (or at least survive)? Maybe. Due partly to problems I cited above and partly to other factors like marketing, z-wave doesn't seem well positioned to play in today's world where stuff on the shelves of Walmart has labels on the side of the box that say, e.g., "works with HomeKit". The whole idea of explaining to joe consumer what it means to "work with" z-wave is hard. So is explaining why they're not getting the supposed signal reliability of z-wave in their two-device network between their computer in the basement and their light switch in their 2nd-story bedroom. Empirically, it doesn't feel to me like z-wave is getting much of the "buzz" in the last few years in the HA market. Known brands like Hue and Nest don't use z-wave. Even within some market niches where z-wave competes for HA hobbyists (sensors, modules), I'm feeling more heat in the zigbee camp with the likes of Aqara and even Ikea.
Jay, If the answer to "what will Indigo do now that Insteon is dead?" is "Z-wave", or even "mainly Z-wave" then that's very useful to know.
EDIT: spelling.
