upstatemike
Senior Member
If Z-wave is so good and "universal", how come there are these negative threads about the new Schlage Z-wave lock not working with anything else Z-wave?Not sure Z-Wave is is truly a tighter spec. Didn't they switch the data speed a couple of years after introduction? They did but this was in spec and doesn't affect any hardware compatability. Some devices needed more bandwidth IE Thermostats to report their status so they bumped up the speedDon't they permit vendor specific implementations of advanced features that can cause problems in a mixed vendor environment?No the spec states just the opposite, all Z-Wave devices are compatable. They do allow building on the protocol as long as all devices are backwardly compatable. (As I understand it each system requires a master controller and that master controller only supports the advanced feature set of those switches that are the same brand as the master)
One of the nice things about Z-Wave is the muti-vendor hardware. There are new devices being released all the time. Schlage just release Z-Wave dead bolts there are multiple tstats, blind controllers, the list goes on and on. I use HomeSeer to manage my Z-Wave devices with excellent Z-Troller which is a remote and controller built as one. When I need to add a new device to my network I simply unplug the Z-Troller walk to the new device, add it and reconnect to HomeSeer. Load my devices into HomeSeer and you're done.
http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=133684
http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=133645
I have never touched Z-wave, but I have heard of nothing but a ton of interoperability problems since day 2.
This, plus all the problems when Z-Wave thermostats first came out and folks were told to buy new remotes to get the firmware that supported them, are good examples of why I continue to be uneasy abou Z-Wave. Does anybody make a firmware upgradable remote that is guaranteed to support any new Z-Wave device that might come out from any manufacturer?
Also still looking for an example of somebody chiming in who has at least 150 or more Z-Wave switches in a single installation. The specs say no problem but any feedback from somebody who is actually doing it?
Finally, I'm still not clear about the push on/push off paddles. If you have a switch that controls 5 lamp modules and 3 of those are already on from some other controller, what happens when you press the switch paddle? does it depend on the current state of the switch itself? So If the switch is off, to turn all the lamp modules off would you first toggle the switch On (turning on the other 2 lamp modules as well) and then hit it again to turn everything off? I'm just not getting the Z-Wave logic here.