Have started to see more and more Zigbee components coming to Market , so i was wondering with future proofing in mind will Zigbee be built into a MCV’s Vera in the future?
We have done a proof of concept bridging ZigBee to our platform. The problem with Zigbee is that there are a wide variety of stack deployments and they do not inter-operate with each other. While they all use the IEEE standard radio 802.15.4 they do not use the same application layer so therefore are not interoperable. A ZigBee Itron meter will not talk to Control4 which will not talk to Alertme which will not talk to Crestron or URC, etc. etc. They all use a standard IEEE 802.15.4 radio but with variants of a"ZigBee" Stack that will not talk inter-operate. So, as soon as a legitimate business case comes about where someone needs us to integrate with a specific ZigBee flavor, we will be happy to do that. This is something the ZigBee Alliance has struggled with for a long time and I know they are trying to fix but to date there are too many variants.
The other thing about Zigbee is the stack is HUGE!!! 256K minimum Flash size on a part. Zigbee becomes more and more bloated with each revision!
MCV was demoing a Zigbee USB dongle at CES this year, but I’m not sure what it was controlling as you are right, it would have to be compatible with that stack.
Really, I’d forget about Zigbee unless there was some decive that wasn’t available in Z-Wave. Zigbee devices are expensive and not very interoperable even with the HA profile that was supposed to allow interoperability.
The only think that still makes me research Zigbee option is a proper outdoor temp/humidity sensor.
Netvox has even a version with the solar panel. nice. I wish z-wave have any dedicated outdoor sensor.
Regards
Maciej
I wish z-wave had a French maid. I wish z-wave did more than control lights, thermostats and door locks.
C’mon folks! It’s 2011! Watching movies off of a plastic platter is obsolete but my computer can’t control anything but locks, lights and boilers?
LOL. Well said. 
Speaking of the ZigBee Home Automation Profile, who is actively using it? Any any home automation platforms supporting it or are they still tied to their proprietary application layers?
It is my understanding that the Zigbee HA profile still leaves interoperability up in the air. In the motorized window covering market, I can get a motor with embedded Zigbee control, but it is still coded for proprietary Crestron application layers of the HA profile. The motor would not respond in a Control4 Zigbee setup. I would have to get the motors programmed to the Control4 layers. This may not be the case with a simple lighting dimmer.
I guess Control4 started the HA profile or Zigbee PRO and tried to make it a standard, but companies are still able to add their flavor to the stack. The companies that use Zigbee PRO really don’t want interoperability. They want you to buy parts specific to their system, at their prices, and don’t want a third party’s device potentially causing problems in their closed system. They want to be able to set themselves apart from the competition and offer features others don’t. Well, if you want to use those features, then you need to employ their proprietary flavor of the Zigbee stack. In the business of window coverings it currently makes much more sense to sell Z-Wave as I have many options to Z-Wave motorize a window, as opposed to needing one motor/controller for each automation system on the market with Zigbee.
For the UK we also have Lightwave RF which seems to be a good replacement for X10 in that it is a budget option. It’s still radio based though.
Siemens seem to have had a part to play in it.
I should add that Lightwave RF is in DIY stores over here. It can be purchased through such outlets and so is more widely available.
The LightwaveRF look quite attractive - especially from a cost perspective. However, I read that most of the devices are either transmit or receive - not both. This will likely make them unreliable - I used the HomeEasy devices for quite a while, and found them to be quite unreliable at times. Z-Wave (and I believe ZigBee) devices have both transmit and receive capability, so they can confirm the command has been received. Lightwave allows for this, but from what I read, in order to keep costs down, they don’t implement it.
It would be nice to get zigbee support for things like the Smart Things presence tag, since there is no zwave presence device available…
Thanks @mchipser for reminding me of a post I made nearly 2 years again.
I’m betting that the next Vera units will support Zigbee in one way or another. To stay competitive I think HA solutions need to be be able to support more and more protocols/options .
I’m curious what zigbee devices are available that are not part of a closed system? My assumption is that Lowe’s Iris uses some zigbee devices to make their system proprietary and costly to leave. For vera to natively support zigbee there needs to be devices that can be included directly.
I have no problem with an approach like Hue where there’s a good API to use Hue lights as if they’re native. Ironically when my veralite get overloaded, the Hue lights always work fast through vera while zwave becomes unreliable. Maybe vera should have no native support. Separate all the application software from device management. My inexpensive little Hue controller never reboots or lags, afaik.
I was unaware of this and was looking into Zigbee as lowes carries several Zigbee devices with cheap price tags. They now even have Orbit 12 station sprinkler controller, But it’s Zigbee.
So can one share some insite on how a closed Zigbee system works. Is it possible that a Zigbee device won’t work with a generic Zigbee controller because of a proprietary lock? Seems like with Z-wave if it’s got the z-wave logo it will work (assuming you have a plugin or software).
Does Z-Wave suffer from the same “flavor” problem described by Zigbee users? The First Alert Z-Wave smoke detector works with Lowes Iris, but not Vera.
Only because it uses a newer zwave protocol which MCV has added support in beta versions of their firmware and should be supported in UI7.
- Garrett
I just ordered a Veralite because I want to also add an Envisalink to control my DSC alarm system. I currently have a Wink hub and a few GE Link bulbs. The bulbs are ZigBee. I have read somewhere that these bulbs will actually work with the Hue controller. I would really like to be able to tie in these lights into the veralite somehow. I wish vera supported ZigBee. I guess I could try the Hue hub. Does anyone know of any other ZigBee controllers that work well with vera?
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[quote=“shady, post:4, topic:169323”]MCV was demoing a Zigbee USB dongle at CES this year, but I’m not sure what it was controlling as you are right, it would have to be compatible with that stack.
Really, I’d forget about Zigbee unless there was some decive that wasn’t available in Z-Wave. Zigbee devices are expensive and not very interoperable even with the HA profile that was supposed to allow interoperability.[/quote] Haven’t see anything documented besides forum posts with regards to that. According to this post it was expected with UI7 but I can’t find anything suggesting that in the release notes here and here.