Zigbee vs Z-wave

Writing by Nico

15^thDecember 2022 4 min of reading

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To start, there are some zigbee vs z-wave comparisons on the internet but I find that they do not go all the way. So I will detail in this article these two protocols which are currently essential in the home automation. So what is the best protocol! are they inseparable we will see that now.

To better understand the zigbee mesh I recently created an article on this subject, it can be consulted by clicking here.

Comparison table zigbee vs z-wave

	ZIGBEE	Z-WAVE
EVOLUTION	1.2 – 3.0	300 – 500 – 700
Mesh	yes	yes
mesh reconstruction	no	yes
knot care	yes	yes
battery consumption	very low	moderate
cost of batteries	derisory	high
Security	AES-128	AES-128
Number of modules	> 600	> 1000
Variety of modules	well	very good
cost of modules	< 20€	> 45€
Module configurations	easy	complex because varied
inclusion	easy	random
touch link	yes ( zigbee 3.0 )	no
bookstore	free or protected	free or protected
controller key	cc2531 /Deconz/zigate	aeotec/Sigma/zway
controller cost	6 – 60 €	50 – 70€
Module batteries	CR2032	Cr123A
Cost Varta Batteries	1,30€	3,26€
Theoretical lifetime	2 years	2 years
Real life	1.5 – 2 years	0.5 – 1.5 years
scope	30 – 100m	30 – 100m
responsiveness	instant	instant
free bookstore	zigbee2mqtt	openzwave / zwave2mqtt
Homeassistant support	yes	yes
Jeedom support	Partial	yes
Rating out of 10 Haade	8	6

So what is the right protocol!

Personally I had 5 years ago started to automate my habitat in z-wave with the home automation manager Jeedom.

Throughout these years I have been able to form an objective opinion on the matter. From there was born the desire to publish a comparison zigbee vs z-wave.

The z-wave is good for the choice of various modules such as all current modules, or dry contact placed behind switches, alarm modules etc…. But all the modules on the stack are greedy and the stacks are expensive moreover the re-inclusion after changing the stack is sometimes delicate.

Since May 2019 I have decided to change all the modules on z-wave batteries to xiaomi zigbee modules. This awareness for this change came at the same time as the desire to change the jeedom home automation system to homeassistant.

Admittedly, it was tricky, but I don’t regret it. Jeedom started developing openzigbee which supports zigbee2mtt but dropped it to deal with deconz. This is one of the reasons that made me leave this system, but that’s another debate. So integration by mqtt is possible but you have to create virtual ones to control the actions and that’s not very waf.

Then there is the cost of the modules which is currently too expensive for my taste for z-wave, that should change in the second half of 2020 but for the moment I have sold the old modules second-hand on a market place and 5 modules on batteries allowed me to collect enough money to pay me 20 in zigbee it is simply surreal. So should we remove the z-wave I would say no because for now the z-wave modules are more varied than zigbee (but this is changing).

CONCLUSION

So should we favor Zigbee!

To conclude, the Zigbee protocol is in my opinion essential and the z-wave protocol remains complementary or even secondary, but all of this risks changing in 1 to two years with the arrival of the Home over ip protocol with matter 😉

In my humble opinion yes it is much more reasonable in terms of cost and maintenance, once you have all the tips to strengthen the mesh it even becomes essential.