Kwikset Lock with OmniPro II - Zwave or Zigbee?

I am looking to add a motorized Kwikset Deadbolt to my back door. I have never used either Zwave or Zibgee in my home. From what I have read thus far, Zwave is more DIY friendly but Zigbee can transmit more data making it a more capable solution.

Any opinions on which technology am I better off going with would be much appreciated.

Thank you,
-Jeff

I'm not sure why you'd say Zwave is more DIY friendly. I cringe at all the issues I see people going through with their ZWave stuff to get it to work properly.

I recently added the HAI Zim and Kwikset deadbolt to my OPII and it was super easy and quick to setup. It's been working flawlessly for about 2 months now.

Go with Zigbee. I just finished an install using kwikset with Hai zim

Do we have to have the Zim to use the locks? Have an OPII and just trying to figure out what I need to control the four locks I want to install.

Would still like more info on what is really best and why, zigbee vs zwave. Looks like AUtomated Outlet has both in the style i want. I have no idea what to use.

Yes, if you want to control the lock from the HAI, you need the ZIM.

thanks jon, Now to figure out if zigbee or zwave.

I would suggest Zigbee for many reasons. First, the HAI devices have a range of 200 or so feet. The end of line devices such as the lock will be much easier to incorporate. Whereas, with zwave, the range is 30-50 feet between devices and many extras will be needed to acheive longer range. Also, because of the extra devices, zwave newtworks get bogged down and latency becomes very evident. (the fewer hops to the end of the line, the snappier the response will be). Hopefully this will help.

To add to what hhholmes said, I always shake my head when I see the steps people with ZWave have to go through when dealing with setup issues. The ZIM is plug & play, takes only a few seconds to enroll the lock and works flawlessly. Commands to/from the device always work and I always know the status of the lock.

Good experience here with Zigbee as well, easy to setup and works reliably.

A few technical notes to clear up.

Wireless door locks are typically battery powered, and with battery powered devices you have a few restrictions. Most battery powered devices have a reduced RF range, so although it may be trying to talk to a device that has a range of 200-300 feet, it may not be able to transmit that far.

Also something to keep in mind is Zigbee has a parent child relationship with battery powered devices. The battery powered devices attached itself to a parent (non battery powered device, ie router). This parent is now responsible of buffering up all messages for the battery powered device while it is "sleeping" to save power. Since there is finite memory available for this buffer, HAI router devices (ZIM, IHD, PCT, LCM) can only have 4 children. If you want more than 4 battery powered devices, you will need another parent besides the ZIM.

A far as the discussion of Zigbee vs Zwave, they both will work for what you want to do. I suggest you look at other products offerings of the same RF protocol and see if there is something you may want to upgrade to in the future.

Edit: I should note that 4 battery powered devices per parent is the current state as of V14.16. This could be increased in future revisions if necessary.

Ryan

In the case of more than 4 battery devices...what are the possible solutions with HAI? I doubt you could run multiple ZIMs, correct?

Bal said:

In the case of more than 4 battery devices...what are the possible solutions with HAI? I doubt you could run multiple ZIMs, correct?

Click to expand...

Throw in a thermostat (PCT), Load Control Module (5A, 15A, or 30A LCM), or Companion (IHD). Since all these devices are routers, they can function as a parent for 4 additional battery operated devices each. I suspect it will not be a common use case where you have 5+ locks all within range of a single ZIM anyway, so you may need to build your Zigbee mesh with a few of these routers.

Ryan

Thanks for all the info. Got my zigbee lock and HAI zim. Tried last night to do this "quickly" only to find out that the kwikset came with NO instructions! LOL. Have them downloaded now and will go try it this evening.

WTF? Who said this was easy? LOL. The instructions say refer to the HAN Instructions?? WHAT HAN INSTRUCTIONS? OK, so my question is, HOW do you put the kwitset into enroll mode? Maybe its easy if i knew how to do that? LOL