Kwikset Lock/Zigbee/Z-Wave Interchangability

[ano]

I use the Kwikset Zigbee locks in my house and they work well. I have noticed that the plain Kwikset pushbutton deadbolt is the same as the Zigbee or Z-wave lock with the addition of a radio card. The non-wireless lock sells for about $79, where the Zigbee or Z-wave versions sell for about $200.  
 
My question is, has anyone tried removing the Zigbee or Z-wave radio cards from the Zigbee or Z-Wave versions, and putting them in the non-wireless version?  Why i ask is because I have lots of the gold color Zigbee locks, but in an effort to get out of the 90's in my new house, the wife has told me our new color is silver. It would be lots cheaper to just buy non-wireless silver Kwikset locks and move the radio cards over. 
 
Also, the older Kwikset locks stored 2 entry codes. The new ones store 8 plus a master code.  So the question here is, has anyone tried moving a radio card from the 2 code version to the 8 code version with success?
 
My guess is any radio card fits in any lock, but I'm not positive. 
 
I do know the Zigbee or Z-wave lock comes with a cover that lets the radio wave through, whereby the non-wireless one does not, but it looks like the newer versions have a different cover that might work with both. I haven't found any retailer that yet sells the new version with Zigbee or Z-wave, but the new non-wireless version does still contain the Zigbee/Z-wave slot so I assume they make them.

 

[drvnbysound]

IIRC, there was an OLD thread were someone had found that the non-wireless locks were just missing the radio as you mentioned. The issue at that time (and regarding that thread) was that you couldn't (or maybe still can't) purchase the radios separately. Even if you could I don't know that you'd save any money doing it that way. In your case, it certainly makes sense to give it a shot. Home Depot and Lowes usually carry the non-wireless versions. It would be worth it to buy one and open it up to see...  if it's missing the connections, it would be easy enough to return.

 

[wuench]

I did it.  I originally had some kwikset locks with no cards.  I bought cards on ebay and they work fine.  There was some kludgy-ness to setting them up with the ISY, but I had that issue with a lock purchased with the card as well.  They were all v2 blue cards.  The issue I had was any codes programmed manually were lost when the card was inserted and at the time the ISY couldn't program codes into the lock.  That has since been remedied so I just push the keypad codes from the ISY.
 
BTW I have seen a lot of people complaining about a lack of tapered deadbolts in certain locks.  I foolishly installed some of mine without swapping out the latch for the new so they weren't tapered and threw out the tapered ones.  But I recently found you can order kwikset tapered latches separately from hardwareworld.com.   Part: Kwikset 80391-002 80391 Vb Tapered Db Latch

 

[ano]

Thanks.  I will get them going soon, so should know what works.  I have to dig out my HAI Zigbee Interface and i can try it with just that before I even get my panel running.  I also wonder if the wireless plastic cover makes any difference compared to the regular plastic cover. 
 
I saw one of the Zigbee cards on eBay for $109.  That seems pretty pricey but maybe not. That and a new lock would be around $189, but then I'm still missing the wireless transparent cover. 
 
Wuench; When you say that the ISY can now program codes into the lock where it couldn't before, is that because of an update to the locks, or an update to ISY?
 
 

I did it.  I originally had some kwikset locks with no cards.  I bought cards on ebay and they work fine.  There was some kludgy-ness to setting them up with the ISY, but I had that issue with a lock purchased with the card as well.  They were all v2 blue cards. 

Maybe you are talking about Z-wave. In all the Zigbee locks I have, the board is red, even in one i bought last week.

 

[wuench]

Yeah sorry I got your questoin backwards, I am talking ZWave and it was an update to the ISY that added the programming of codes feature so the fact that the zwave locks couldn't be programmed manually with the v2 card became irrelevant.

 

[ano]

I think Z-Wave and Zigbee work similar. (Except the Zigbee cards are red.)  The reason i asked we because I have heard that that same code programmability is supported in Zigbee also, but I think HAI/Leviton doesn't support it.  So maybe it does work on the lock, but unless it also works on the panel, it doesn't really matter.  That is why i asked if it was a lock problem or an ISY problem?   HAI/Leviton panel firmware can be upgraded, and Kwikset Zigbee lock firmware can also be upgraded over wireless, which is pretty neat.