This video answered questions I didn't even know I had. Thank you so much!

This was a OUTSTANDING video! I am an engineer who put X-10 in over 20 years ago and recently moved so it is time to learn the new technology options. Rob explained it all so that you can understand the tradeoffs. And they ARE trade-offs, if there was one "best" we would all just use it. Duh! Excellent discussion on RF, well done! And as a cyber security guy, you gave me a lot to consider. I still have a LOT to learn, but this 15 minute video saved me gobs of research time. In fact, I was keen on the Z-Wave when you started talking as 933 MHz appealed to me as it is not in a congested frequency range PLUS the penetration of 933 Hz vs 2.4 GHz. That was until you taught me about the Connected Home Over IP standards and how Z-Wave "couldn't play in reindeer games." BUZZ! Thanks for playing. Next! Great video! Good starting point for any geek who wants to learn more! THANK YOU!

Best technology tutorial I’ve seen. Clear language no technical jargon and great metaphors to explain complex protocols to non-techies. I’ve a teaching background in technology and haven’t seen a better presentation. Thank you

Love your vids Rob... thank you for all you do to help advance home automation!

Wonderfully thought out video. I had been down all 3 rabbit holes when trying to decide which one to pick. It was nice to see a completely independent video reach the same conclusions I did, but explained in such an easy to understand format.

Super awesome as usual. Tons of useful, accessible information with a reasonable leadin and a brief but adequate plug at the end for self-promotion. I'm going to go check out the patreon now - thank you for doing this!

Thank you for info and your time. "IT IS PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE TO LOVE IN"

Thanks , Was waiting for someone to explain for ages :) Keep up the awesome work

The combination of detail and brevity here is great! Thank you!

Came here after searching many sites and watching many videos to decide on which protocol to use and I found my answer. Thank you for the clear explanation!

Awesome content, great delivery, down to earth language, know his audience but also adapts the message to newcomers... Thank you so much for making these videos.

Gosh darn... i love this channel. Seriously, when i see it when I'm searching for something I know straight away I'm going to watch an informative video, which respects my time and is very well communicated. Thanks!

This is the reason of being for the internet. One knows knowledge when one hears it. Just won a sub. Well done man

As ever, clarity, well delivered. Thank you.

Nice presentation Rob. I'm a bigger fan of zigbee myself, not really for concrete reasons except it was more appealing as far as price and availability of products (most likely due to the zwave being so locked down as you mentioned) Ultimately I'm glad I have less devices to worry about with my wifi AP. Ultimately a great video for newcomers. Good work.

Great job explaining these different protocols. Much appreciate it!

This is a detailed, accurate and well informed explanation of the home automation technologies. Well done.

Very nice tutorial on the various protocols used in home automation!

Great overview! Just got interested in the smart home concept and what's there on the market these days, got the answers I needed, thank you)

Thanks for the methodical explanations, man! Your efforts go a long way when speaking IOT when so few are prepared to or even comprehend.

Fantastic video...your content is top notch mate.

Well stated by a true technology professional. Thank you.

great video as always Rob!

Wonderful explanation of the differences , keep up the great videos. Would love to see a video on your opinion of the Ubiquiti UDMs.

Great video! Thanks for your detailed explanations.

This video is put together well and has great detail. Thanks and Cheers 👍

Very detailed and awesome explanation. Much appreciated.

Thank you Teacher! Amazing video. Thanks for you time.

Very good narration. Very informative and easy to understand by any layman. Thanks

Very well explained. I liked a lot this video.

Another great video Rob.

thank you so much for this AWESOME video!

Great video! Although quite technical this is the first one that was understandable as well.

A good overview. However you missed the Z-Wave is extensible language. What this means is manufacturers have to use the existing commands if one already exists but can create new ones if they do not exist in the spec. So for example if someone wanted to make a Z-Wave instant pot they would have to use the Z-Wave standards for on and off but they would get to use their own commands for setting the temperature. Z-Wave is actually administered by the Z-Wave Alliance which while mostly controlled by sigma designs does have several dozen companies involved who wind up voting on which new commands to add to the protocol.

Excellent presentation

Love the vid, I have smarthings and a mix of wifi and zigbee. I had a pile of issues with interference when I started since I also have 5 wireless roku TVs that use wifi remotes. Once I upgraded to netgear orbi and moved my main devices over to 5gh things got better. The one thing I wish that was easier is finding new products it's such a pain to verify if they work with smart things because I hate having to use another app for each device. This vid really helped me understand the difference for sure thanks for your info.

As an old RF enthusiast from the walkie-talkie days thanks for the catchup on comm tech for the home. Best Buy and all are selling this stuff and almost no one you talk to understands the big picture or the science behind it. (this includes cable-internet providers). I hope to be able to get enough out of this to get some project off the ground for modest cost.

Great video, well delivered.

Woah. That drive thru analogy blew my mind! Haha

Excellent explanation, thanks!

Fantastic overview! I'm building up my Home Assistant system with both Z-Wave and Zigbee. I've been avoiding Wi-Fi because it's possible for those devices to communicate over the internet unless I specifically block them on my firewall but I hadn't heard that there was custom firmware available...it sounds like there is another rabbit hole for me to dive into.

This is a very nice video, thank you

Great info... thanks!

Excellent discussion and advice!

Another great video. My smart home consists of all Z-Wave devices running on homeseer Smart Home software. Really easy to configure in use very versatile

Great Tutorial !!! Thank you ..

All Zwave must work with all other Zwave by its manufacture specs. Zigbee is "open source" but does NOT have to work with other Zigbee devices. This means that Zigbee can work one day then not work because of a software change. Just be aware of this when you design your systems. Best advice is to get a hub that has all of the "radios" you will need.

This is a guide to video communication protocols. Thank you

Excellent video and channel.

I have to admit that my default reaction to home automation videos on KZfaq is pretty much me rolling my eyes at the IT geek who has decided he can teach the world about HA, BUT this is actually pretty solid. It’s hard to find fault in a factual review of the technologies. Good stuff man!! 👍 My much more subjective opinion can be summarized as follows: build your HA primarily on a non-cloud controller (just trust me), ignore WiFi devices as an option COMPLETELY (unless you come across specific use cases like Shelly relays), use zigbee for anything battery powered and Z-Wave for anything hardwired. Lastly, run run run run RUN from the SmartThings hub (the hub, not the zigbee devices), it is absolute trash. The only hubs I would consider at this time is anything running HomeSeer, and the Hubitat hubs (the latter really has really impressed me, even though I have been using HomeSeer for over a decade). Just my $0.02

geez man... it's like you speak my language. great advice and exactly what i want to know. Really want to see a video like this evaluating the current state of outdoor cameras and how to use them with local control. a shootout of cameras, if you will... thanks again!

Bought a CC2530 stick from aliexpress and flashed it. Zigbee2mqtt for use as a hub. Integrated into Home assistant. Works perfect, finally I can use Hue motion sensors for some other lights than Hues. And total cost under 10 usd. And they have very wide support for devices and you can even make new devices supported yourself. Only minus is that you need additional powered CC2530 sticks to get over 15 zigbee devices. Recommended!

Very informative!

Thank you for the awesome video! One thing to mention, if you want smart dimmer switch and you don't have neutral wire, Z Wave is your only choice (as of today IIUC).

Awesome explanation. TY

Thanks for your video it was super informative. I appreciate it's now 3 years old. Have you considered doing a video about ‘Matter’ Smart Home Standard?

Great video. Thanks.

thanks for all the explanations, I wonder if something from your conclusions would be different today :)

Great video!

Awesome job!

great report

Very well done sir

Interesting video. Now my 2 cents :-) Bluetooth avoid. Wi-Fi avoid as it congests your Wi-Fi router (if you have a lot of devices) and a bunch more issues. Zigbee ignore as it is flaky, and everything seems to interfere with the devices. As for Z-wave and Smartthings, I have 79 devices devices on Smarthings, the vast majority of them being Z-Wave, only RGB lights and water leak sensors are Zigbee (RGB lights are actually hue , but even they will connect directly to Smarthings without the Hue bridge.) Out of those 79 devices, only 1 device runs on the cloud, everything else runs locally, even most routines / automations. The only thing I do not like with Z-wave and Zigbee is a lot of devices use stupidly expensive batteries, hence why I hacked some of my devices which use 2450 batteries, to use 2 x AA batteries which now last massively times longer. As for that 'Group' , i'm pretty sure most of that will be cloud processed and all your information then being shared by everyone.

Very informative thank you

Thank you for the great video it's really useful. I understand you don't tend to advertise specific brands but what do you recommend for wireless wall switches and IR blasters for home assistant? I'm using Raspberry Pi 4.

Great explanation! Learned a few new things (I had no idea of C.H.I.P. for example) and also re-affirmed some stuff that I already knew about. There is however one extra popular solution that you missed out on and which is primarily used by big companies: cable, and in the case of home automation, ethernet cabling. It is by far the most reliable option and also the one that has the lowest latency (speed is not as important, when your temperature sensor requires 1Gbit/s speeds you might have other problems) and you can send out electricity as well which eliminates the need for batteries. That being said, installing cable everywhere isn't something to get started in the IoT stuff: wifi and zigbee work just as well. Can't speak for Z-Wave as I don't have any device that uses it.

Very informative content! :)

great content!

Z-Wave also use different frequenzy in different regions.

Good video!

This video isbeautiful explains alot

Well explained..

Vivint SmartHome uses all three. It uses WiFi (or Ethernet, optionally, if it’s a new construction or something and hardwiring the whole thing is feasible) to connect the hub to all the cameras and also to connect the hub to the WWW. Vivint has a Z-wave hub built in to connect to locks, lights, window blinds, Vivint’s Element thermostat, etc. Vivint also uses WiFi to connect to some compatible products that use Zigbee, such as the Phillips Hue lightbulb system.

I am fond of the local network setup you described, but the network is not a physical redundant infrastructure, but a VLan based one with all the access restrictions in place

Great stuff

FYI, Silicon Labs fully aquired Z-Wave in april of 2018 so it is no longer true that is licensed by Sigma Designs. Silicon Labs has since then changes the licence to make it a more open standard so that other companies can license the rights to make Z-Wave chips, but as far as I know no other company has done so as if yet.

Thank you! very interesting)

This is a topic I have been waiting on for a while. Thank you! As an IT engineer I cant help but think that wifi smart home devices will congest my wifi network. This may not manifest in real word degradation but I cant get past the theory so I go with z-wave, about 60 devices total.

In the long run, after using WiFi, zwave and zigbee devices for several years, my favorite is wifi. Zigbee and zwave tends to disconnect from time to time and require re-pairing, which is sometimes not easy, and very frustrating. Wifi on the other end didn't pose issues (but need to be hardwired)

Pls rob, can u do a video about the rf433 mess as well? How they communicate and why not?

Thanks Rob.

Thanks for the video =)

Very informative video presented professionally. Though versions 2 & 3 SmartThings hubs are compatible with just about everything, past experience with a cloud-based doorbell cam's latency (person was usually gone by the time I got the notice, so I couldn't communicate, but I did get the video) has made me investigate beyond cloud-based systems. Have you reviewed (or found one on) the Zooz Z-Wave S2 USB vs. the Aotec Gen5 Plus sticks? If the capabilities are similar, do you know whether the compatible software suites are comparable in features?

This video is amazing, thanks for sharing. Any chance on an update video, that includes Thread/Matter and LORA?

Excellent info on Smart devices connectivity, i have been researching for about a week, i this is video helped a lot, i am still looking for more info on how often WiFi devices communicate to the router and what is the Tx power output , i.e. constant communication ? every certain period ? when device is off or on only ? time of activation communication etc.. i can find much online.

Glad to subscribe.. so many things learned here in a condensed layman language :)

Excellent ! Tks

I setup Z-Wave in my house 10 years ago and have not touched it since... it just works...

Got a few comments as one that works in a business that uses the zigbee standard, a. zigbee has several frequencies we use 868MHz and 2.4GHz and zigbee is an open standard allowing third parties to create products but there are also many standards that are applied by zigbee to specify the way this different types of items can talk but not restricting the provider from giving more options, i.e. the "Smart Metering Equipment Technical Specifications" adds onto the zigbee specification adding the protocol definition for a metering device, this means that a device that talks to a metering device must follow this standard in order to be zigbee certified, i think there is also a consideration to the power per distance area, as a mesh network only needs to reach its next node it uses far less power over the same distance which will result in less interference and add the sleepy end devices and zigbee green devices which are only active when they need to bee you have a lot of power and interferance savings that make the mesh networks like z wave and zigbee far more reliable than a wifi

Just subscribe...awesome video!

Hey Rob, They actually opensourced Z-wave a day after the Connected Home Over IP was announced.

Hi, great totorial. Can you tell as where to find this theory?

Have lots of zwave devices and work with smart grid 900MHz products at home too. Don’t have interference issues with either. The only time I had a zwave network issue was when a zwave thermostat failed and was continuously transmitting. Operating for about 10 years now.

Thanks for very informative video. You could also include some content about Bluetooth mesh This is a new and emerging Technology getting a lot of traction in industry.

It it worth noting that all these standards communicates on different frequencies in us and europe and rest of the world.

Thanks!

like the features, setup was difficult for some of my devices (August Door lock, kzfaq.infoUgkxhB5YOMNj04GuoAosExygP4cH-dKeb4aB Bose speaker)... but all switches and outlets (5), thermostat, tankless water heater. Unfortunately all I can do is turn on/off Bose. It doesn't support volume or changing channels, but I believe that is due to the particular speaker I have.... Worth getting if you already have other devices to use it with... I don't sit around and ask Alexa questions much so that doesn't really matter to me....

I think it's worth mentioning that although zwave devices should be "theoretically" compatible. There are couple of zwave frequencies for different parts of the world. Very Important if you are buying your devices online.

Galaxy Brain: run Home Assistant with dongles and you can have any combination of WiFi, Zigbee, and ZWave devices and integrate them all however you want

I see, very helpful 🤔 I could flash a chip but do I was to go through that trouble 🤔