I was about to order some new Aeon devices that supper z-wave plus (More powerfull == great distancies and higher throughput). But then I the person I was in contact with asked if my gateway supports z-wave plus (gen 5) so I went to check the specs on the newly released SmartThings Hub v2. I was a bit shocked to not see it.
Is it horribly expensive to it or was there another reason it’s not supported given how recent the release is?
I understand they should be backward compatible but i’ve seen some thread discussions about difficulty pairing.
Short version–I have two of them and they work fine with my v2 hub. The custom device type available in the thread above adds some functionality not present in the stock device type…but they work fine.
I’m almost positive the v2 Hub is Zwave Plus. In fact, I think I recall seeing the Zwave Plus logo on some late build v1 hub boxes on this forum. The v2 Hub page in the shop doesn’t do a very good job of explaining the protocol specs I guess. It should note somewhere that it’s Zwave Plus and Zigbee HA 1.2.
I tried to search for the statements from ST employees on here, but couldn’t find it. I think it says 100 feet because that’s a more realistic real-world estimate, which would be a rare pleasant surprise in consumer tech spec sheets.
@slagle can you confirm this for us? Appreciate it.
You can check whether any certified zwave device is zwave plus or not by looking at its official “conformance statement” on the Z wave alliance products website. And of course looking at the logo on the box.
The Samsung SmartThings hub (usually called V2 in these forums) is definitely zwave plus.
The v one hub was originally certified for classic zwave, but some of the last group of production runs did use Zwave plus. Again, check the logo on the box.
It does, in the sense that zwave plus definitely gives you longer range than the zwave classic. I’ve written about my own experience in going from the V1 hub to the V2 hub.
That said, you have all the usual local architecture issues so no specific range is guaranteed. The certification measurements are based on clear line of sight. Nothing in the way, including people.
In a typical US Home, you’d be lucky to get 100 feet indoors. But you might. It just depends on the furniture, the insulation in the walls, the water pipes in the walls, the type of wallpaper, how many people in the room, etc. At my house, where I park my wheelchair makes a difference.
In a typical Asian home made of concrete with concrete floors and walls, you’d be lucky to get signal out of one room.
In a typical US home, the garage is often the most problematic room to get signal through because of all the Concrete and metal (including from cars).
So you might easily get 100 feet in the center of the house in a semi open plan layout, and only get 40 feet in the garage. But the same is true of any radio frequency protocol, including Wi-Fi.
