December 08, 2017 6 Comments
Choosing the ultimate smart home system for your needs and lifestyle can be daunting if you don’t know what to look for. Each hub comes with its own advantages and limitations; a certain feature might be a godsend for someone else but a deal breaker for you. That’s why we’ve listed our top 3 Z-Wave hub recommendations below, including what we love about these hubs but also some things to consider when choosing the right one for you. And good news! They all support Alexa, so you can count on a voice-activated smart home this holiday season.
“Excellent starting point for home integration.” – Adidas1976 (Amazon review)
“Easy Set Up: There is a lot to like about this system!
1. EASY to set up. EASY.
2. So many things (basically all the 'internet of things' type equipment) connects to it
3. Did I say it was easy to set up?” – ZenDarb (Amazon review)
“All in all a good unit with a lot of compatibility without extra fees. But the unit is not for someone expecting plug-n-play.” – AZEqualizer (Full review here)
“Easy set up, good community support. As you get comfortable with the options you can tailor it to be more robust. It offers lots of configuration options. Check out their forums for help and all the different things this controller can do.” – Travis (Full review here)
“Very easy to get to grips with. The graphic interface makes this a dream to use.” – David S. (Vesternet review)
“The Fibaro HCL is a powerful device able to manage up to 230 Z-Wave devices with impressively fast local processing.” – Big Bruin
Amazon’s recent answer to home automation has some smart home capability built-in. However, it only supports the ZigBee protocol. This means you won’t be able to directly connect any Z-Wave devices, which leaves some of the more innovative and affordable smart home options out-of-reach.
While Wink may be a good choice for basic light automation and very basic monitoring, it doesn’t offer any access to advanced settings and works with a very limited pool of Z-Wave devices. Just as you start having fun with automation, you run into a wall. Because it lives primarily in the cloud, we’ve received reports of the system being very unstable overall.
If you have input regarding your favorite smart home hub, let us know what it is and why in the comment section below! And have a very happy holiday season!
October 01, 2019
Hi Tom, yes! You can remove a Z-Wave device that belonged to a different hub using any Z-Wave gateway / controller. You’ll need to find general exclusion in your SmartThings app (under hub > Z-Wave Utilities > General Exclusion) and remove the device following the instructions in the device’s manual.
September 30, 2019
Piper sent out a firmware update a while back that broke all zwave device support. While they fixed it, I wasn’t able to cleanly remove all devices and 2 cannot be added back or added to my Smarthings hub. And thier force removal process does not work. Can I remove a device with Smartthings that was previously on a piper network?
February 08, 2019
Hi Bill, We don’t carry any fan controllers at the moment but I believe that HomeSeer has a fan switch that would fit your needs, model HS-FC200+
February 05, 2019
Do you have a suggestion for a in-wall 3 speed ceiling fan switch? Z wave
November 24, 2018
You have a large customer base that is using the hubitat elevation hub. I have seen many links to your site in their community forum. It’s a very reliable, locally processed hub with many advanced features. Works with just about any z wave or zigbee device, and even wifi connected devices and lutron
October 16, 2023
Z-Wave devices are all interoperable. This means that technically, any Z-Wave enabled device can successfully communicate with another Z-Wave device, exchanging messages using wireless signal. Regardless of the brand, chip version, or product type, they work together seamlessly. Or do they?
September 11, 2023 9 Comments
Some of us are excited about Matter, some of us are dismissive, some of us are anxious. What does it mean for my Z-Wave gear? Will my smart home system become obsolete or incompatible with devices from my favorite brands? There’s a lot of uncertainty behind Matter’s promises and not many details about how Z-Wave will play into the new landscape. In this blog post, we take a closer look at how Z-Wave and Matter can coexist and interact in the future.
March 22, 2023 4 Comments
Let’s take a closer look at the first Z-Wave focused hub for US and Canada. We will uncover its primary benefits, UI features, how to use the Z-Box mobile app, and what sets the system apart from other hubs available today.
As we often tell our customers, there isn’t one perfect smart home platform to solve it all. The Z-Box Hub is no exception. What makes it unique is its focus on easy access to advanced automation functionality while keeping the key data and processes off-cloud.
Oliver Smith
November 18, 2019
Hey Nice write up about this..it useful for us..Keep Updated…