Z-Wave Plus vs Z-Wave

Community Playground General Discussions
1

I have Vera Plus and several Z-Wave Plus (Gen5) devices. I am trying to get full understanding of Gen5 vs previous generation differences.

  1. Is there a way to verify that the devices in my network are actually communicating at Z-Wave Plus protocol / speed?
  2. If I add a previous generation non-plus Z-Wave device to my network, will the whole network be communicating at the previous generation protocol, or will only that one device fall back, while the rest of the network keeps Gen5 protocol / speed?
2

I don’t think there’s a way to tell in Vera, but HomeSeer does tell you what speed/protocol each device is using.

The whole network won’t communicate at previous generation, but depending on the route Vera takes to communicate, yes older devices do slow down the network. For example if Vera has to go through a 9.6k device to get to the ZWave Plus device, you will notice a delay, but if it communicates with the Plus device directly, then it should be blazing fast. If you have very old 9.6k devices (anything built over about 6 years ago), you should replace them with something newer. Those very old devices do slow down the network drastically (in my experience). All newer devices, including non zwave plus devices (40k), should be very fast.