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Yeah I did long research into home automation, and Z-Wave has been around for 14 years with 500+ devices. The secure AES two-way communication is very assuring for the mesh network structure. Keep in mind that not every device actually supports everything, as it is up to the device manufactor to decide how to implement the protocol. The current wave is all about the new 500-chipset series, otherwise known as "Z-Wave Plus" or simply Z-Wave+, which uses lower power, and also supports wireless firmware updates. Aeon-Labs (Aeotec) is launching some very interesting products in the US (and elsewhere) in 3-days, such as the Z-Wave LED bulb. No need for any Z-Wave switch or dimmer, just pop lightbulb in, add it to your Z-Wave controller, and you got 16-million colors to pick from, or a Kelvin range from 2500 to 7400. The only thing I am still uncertain about is if the bulb can be programmed on how it will act when power is restored in case it is still controlled by a regular switch that would kill the power to Z-Wave (which would disable the remote control then). Almost every Z-Wave device that I have supports previous state when power is restored, but for an LED bulb it would be important it restores at say 100% soft-white light, and not restore it to say 10% pink from a previous event Of course ideally you would replace the switch with a blank faceplate, and control the bulb purely via Z-Wave (which is how I have done most lights already with the Aeon-Labs dimmer module inside the lamp fixture -- this house was wired incorrect, so I was forced to use ugly workaround). My Vera3 was actually off-line for 15 days, but as of yesterday works again (waiting to hear back from Vera support on Monday as to what they did to fix it, so I can do it quicker myself if it ever happens again, but at the same time I am looking seriously at HomeSeer software solution).
Yeah I did long research into home automation, and Z-Wave has been around for 14 years with 500+ devices. The secure AES two-way communication is very assuring for the mesh network structure. Keep in mind that not every device actually supports everything, as it is up to the device manufactor to decide how to implement the protocol. The current wave is all about the new 500-chipset series, otherwise known as "Z-Wave Plus" or simply Z-Wave+, which uses lower power, and also supports wireless firmware updates.
Aeon-Labs (Aeotec) is launching some very interesting products in the US (and elsewhere) in 3-days, such as the Z-Wave LED bulb. No need for any Z-Wave switch or dimmer, just pop lightbulb in, add it to your Z-Wave controller, and you got 16-million colors to pick from, or a Kelvin range from 2500 to 7400. The only thing I am still uncertain about is if the bulb can be programmed on how it will act when power is restored in case it is still controlled by a regular switch that would kill the power to Z-Wave (which would disable the remote control then). Almost every Z-Wave device that I have supports previous state when power is restored, but for an LED bulb it would be important it restores at say 100% soft-white light, and not restore it to say 10% pink from a previous event
Of course ideally you would replace the switch with a blank faceplate, and control the bulb purely via Z-Wave (which is how I have done most lights already with the Aeon-Labs dimmer module inside the lamp fixture -- this house was wired incorrect, so I was forced to use ugly workaround). My Vera3 was actually off-line for 15 days, but as of yesterday works again (waiting to hear back from Vera support on Monday as to what they did to fix it, so I can do it quicker myself if it ever happens again, but at the same time I am looking seriously at HomeSeer software solution).
