Z-Wave Long Range goes live in Europe

It was way back in 2020 that Z-Wave Long Range was announced for North American smart homes and now, almost four years later, the specification for ZWLR for the European market (including in the UK) has been completed. It will be made available to member companies in an upcoming release.

Z-Wave Long Range promises a much further reach than regular Z-Wave which is limited to 100m per ‘hop’.

ZWLR has a specification capable of supporting up to several miles, according to the Z-Wave Alliance, and the first implementation from Silicon Labs features proven transmission range of a mile.

Z-Wave LR is backwards compatible with existing Z-Wave networks and devices and is still a super low power option; in fact, the Z-Wave Alliance has stated that basic smart home sensors could run for up to 10-years from a single cell battery.

Unlike the normal Z-Wave mesh network, ZWLR devices function within a star network topology, wherein a central gateway/hub serves as the focal point, facilitating direct, point-to-point connections with end devices.

This configuration ensures a streamlined communication pathway, significantly reducing latency between the gateway/hub and end points.

Explainer: What is Z-Wave

As the smart home’s popularity explodes, more and more connected devices are being added to people’s houses. A lot of these devices – sensors, lightbulbs, heating controls, locks, plugs and the like – pack in Z-Wave to talk to each other.

In fact, there are more than 100 million Z-Wave devices in smart homes worldwide, with more than 4,300 certified Z-Wave devices to choose from.

Following the first certified Z-Wave Long Range device – the Ecolink 700 Series Garage Door Controller – that went live in mid-2022, there are now more than 50 Z-Wave LR devices, as well as north of 300 Z-Wave devices with the new 800 series chip on board.

Z-Wave LR also means you can build your smart home networks to a much greater size than was previously possible with the standard.

With standard Z-Wave, you can have up to 232 nodes (i.e. connected devices) on the mesh network. Z-Wave LR increases scalability on a single smart home network to over 4,000 nodes.

Last month, at CES 2024, The Ambient spoke with Avi Rosenthal, Managing Partner of Bluesalve Partners, who currently sits as Chairman of the Z-Wave Alliance’s board.

He told us that, despite the obvious ‘threat’ of the Matter smart home standard, Z-Wave was instead focused on the opportunities of an increasingly possible interoperable smart home for users.

“Do I see Matter as competition? Absolutely I do,” Rosenthal explained. “Do I also see Matter as an opportunity? Absolutely I do.”

“We’re willing to help; we’re willing to be part of the conversation.” he said. “We don’t see it as an us and them scenario, we see it as an opportunity for everybody to work together.”