Home Assistant Proves Z-Wave's Longevity With New Official Hardware
Home Assistant is giving Z-Wave a serious range boost with its latest bit of official hardware: the Connect ZWA-2, which has just been officially announced.
Built by Nabu Casa (as all official Home Assistant hardware is), the Connect ZWA-2 is a $69 USB adapter designed to tap into the latest performance improvements from the 25 year old smart home standard.
The ZWA-2 is purpose-built by the Home Assistant team with a precisely tuned antenna and base that match Z-Wave's ideal wavelength, helping signals punch through thick walls, dodge interference, and reach places your Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and Bluetooth gear can only dream about.
With support for Z-Wave Long Range (currently in North America and Europe), it can link devices far beyond your living room, think a motorized gate at the end of your driveway or a mailbox sensor down the street.
Theoretically ZWLR boasts a range of up to 1.5 miles in ideal conditions, with no signal repeaters or awkward routing needed and there are already a bunch of devices, such as Shelly's new range of devices, which went live last month.
The Connect ZWA-2 is powered by the latest 800-series Z-Wave chipset from Silicon Labs and plays nicely with all Z-Wave generations, from early gear to Z-Wave Plus V2.
Home Assistant's software does the heavy lifting, with S2 security, SmartStart, OTA firmware updates, and a setup wizard that walks you through getting online in minutes. If you are already running Z-Wave on another adapter, then Home Assistant are stating that the migration process takes via a new software wizard.
The design, while perhaps a touch clunky due to the antenna size, is designed to blend into home décor; it even glows softly, candle-style. Inside, you'll find a Silabs ZG23 Z-Wave chip and ESP32-S3 USB bridge, with full documentation and firmware available for tinkerers.
The ZWA-2 is the second release in the Home Assistant Connect line, following the Zigbee/Thread-friendly Connect ZBT-1 in 2022.
Available now for $69 in the US and €59 in Europe, the Connect ZWA-2 is Home Assistant's clearest signal yet that Z-Wave still has a long future ahead, even in an ever-increasingly Matter-connected world.
'Home Assistant supports a lot of different smart home standards, and while Z-Wave may be a couple of decades old, it has many strengths,' explained Paulus Schoutsen, founder of Home Assistant. 'Connect ZWA-2 makes the most of those strengths with its optimized antenna and support for the new Z-Wave Long Range standard. We want to breathe new life into this standard and keep the millions of Z-Wave devices in people's homes working great far into the future.'
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