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I wasn't aware of the purported regulatory radio limits on power, but I can report anecdotally that I found a huge jump in usability/signal strength/ownership s

I wasn't aware of the purported regulatory radio limits on power, but I can report anecdotally that I found a huge jump in usability/signal strength/ownership satisfaction when I started replacing my old ZWave 1 stuff with the 500-series or above hardware (ZWave "Plus" is the name for these sometimes). This "LR" stuff you mention is what I think some are calling the Z-Wave 800 series. It more than doubles the radio range of the 500 series stuff and greatly reduces power draw for battery devices. However, I have 500 and 700 series sensors that only need a battery change once every ~2 years or so. I don't find that to be too much, and the signal strength has been no problem for me in an old brick house. I do have a handful of powered zwave devices around though, and these act automatically as repeaters for the other devices in the mesh.

amluto 3y ago
I have a mix of 700 and 800 series Z-wave gear, and I find it borderline useless — a mesh hop struggles to reach one room over. LR is a rather different thing — slightly different frequency, very different topology, and it requires explicit controller software support. As far as I can tell, most or all 800 series hardware supports LR, 700 might with appropriate firmware, and earlier chips do not. node-zwave-js does not yet support LR, but someone seems to be working on it (slowly).
amluto 3y ago
More details: https://www.silabs.com/documents/login/presentations/design-with-z-wave-to-extend-your-wireless-range-1-mile-tw.pdf https://www.silabs.com/documents/login/presentations/design-... I’m having a surprisingly hard time finding EU regulatory limits for Z-wave non-LR. ISTR some source saying that the FCC had a much stronger limit on power spectral density, which is where the -1dBm limit came from, and the EU may allow something higher.

amluto 3y ago

I have a mix of 700 and 800 series Z-wave gear, and I find it borderline useless — a mesh hop struggles to reach one room over. LR is a rather different thing — slightly different frequency, very different topology, and it requires explicit controller software support. As far as I can tell, most or all 800 series hardware supports LR, 700 might with appropriate firmware, and earlier chips do not. node-zwave-js does not yet support LR, but someone seems to be working on it (slowly).

amluto 3y ago

More details: https://www.silabs.com/documents/login/presentations/design-with-z-wave-to-extend-your-wireless-range-1-mile-tw.pdf https://www.silabs.com/documents/login/presentations/design-... I’m having a surprisingly hard time finding EU regulatory limits for Z-wave non-LR. ISTR some source saying that the FCC had a much stronger limit on power spectral density, which is where the -1dBm limit came from, and the EU may allow something higher.