I am looking to the Yale Assure Lock Touchscreen Deadbolt but they have z-wave and zigbee versions.
Any idea which is the way to go? It will be within 10ft of the ST hub so distance or repeaters won’t matter.
I have a mix of z-wave and zigbee in my house.
Wondering if the battery life is better, better security, etc is better than one than the other. Zigbee is $8 more but not a factor really. Any ideas on why it would be more?
I personally prefer ZigBee but most community members prefer Z-Wave. ZigBee battery life is better than Z-Wave (Z-Wave plus is a different comparison). Also ZigBee natively supports firmware OTA updates however SmartThings currently does not support updating lock firmware. ZigBee also supports attribute bind reporting which I feel is a better way of reporting current lock status. Lutron has a patent on instant status that many Z-Wave implementations do not include due to paying royalty fees. Operating range between ZigBee and Z-Wave are comparable.
On the other hand ZigBee is more likely to have interference as more devices operate on the 2.4GHz band. Since you can’t move your door if there is strong interference in that location there is little you can do. The 900MHz band has much less interference and is more likely to work wherever it is placed. Also Z-Wave locks have a much greater user base so there is more support for those types of locks.
In any case both locks support the same feature set. If you want to remotely program codes it can be done with community SmartApps and DTHs for either lock type.
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I believe the Z-Wave lock is Z-Wave Plus.
Would that be a game changer?
Leaning towards the zigbee right now…
You are correct. This is Yale’s new Assure line. They are Z-Wave Plus. Z-Wave Plus has comparable battery life to ZigBee and much better range than ZigBee. They also now support a standard firmware OTA process though SmartThings does not support Z-Wave firmware updates and have not confirmed if they ever will.
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