ArsTechnica: I was wrong to ignore Zigbee and Z-Wave. They’re the best part of my smart home.
There’s plenty of room for this early-aughts tech in a modern connected space.
I've never had an issue with my ZWave stuff, ever. I love that it's an independent wireless standard that's not beholden to my network.
As devil's advocate, I have had loads of trouble with only 3 devices.
For example, my Fibaro smart CO meter absolutely killed itself after 3 weeks of use, draining 100% battery in 2 days with 0 human interaction.
In theory it is good, but many devices are absolute shitty trash (especially for a safety device) at 4x the cost of ZigBee.
This guy seems like he's spent several weeks figuring out this stuff so he didn't have to remember to close the door or hit the light switch.
Good he is enjoying himself, but smart home stuff has to offer something more beneficial than that to get people interested.
Ugh, I can relate. My buddy was recommending zwave for years and I ignored him because I got annoyed setting up one of the old USB dongles. The new ones are way better and zwave/zigbee is great.
I'm still using rf433, but zigbee is on the wishlist.