Meross outdoor 3 socket plug $15.79

[JDRoberts]

@Pantheon

I want something like this for outdoor Christmas lights. And I am sure I could find this answer with a little research, but which is better, Wifi, Z-wave or zigbee control?

Each has pluses and minuses, so it depends on tiny details of the use case. And, yes, it’s been discussed many times before in the forum, so I don’t really want to go into all that again.

Shortest answer: it doesn’t really matter most of the time. WiFi has the best range and strongest signal, So it’s often a good choice for outdoor applications unless you need a repeater of one of the other protocols. But it does use more power than the others and take up a slot on your router, so there are also reasons not to use it in some situations.

Here’s one of several threads discussing the issues:

Any drawbacks to using WiFi light switches instead of zigbee/z-wave?

And here’s a technical discussion. It’s from six years ago, but it applies.

New to SmartThings should I avoid Wifi devices over alternative Z Wave or Zigbee devices?

Now to the protocol question. My college major was Computer Information Systems and I went on to work for IBM until the wheelchair-thing. My first commercial install was in a nuclear power plant. So I’m very interested in network protocols, and had worked with all of the ones you mentioned before ever starting with home automation. As with many things, the choice for any individual device comes down to how you specifically want to use it. ZIGBEE/ZWAVE: MESH KEEPS COSTS DOWN Zigbee and Zwave were both designed for “mesh” networks where there would be a lot of mostly dumb, mostly cheap, often battery powered devices where any given device might be occasionally unavailable, if only to have its batteries changed. In a mesh network, the hub doesn’t panic if a device is unavailable. …