Episode 382 – Zigbee and Z-Wave

By | February 7, 2018

Z-Wave is the simpler, but ultimately a proprietary protocol, with chips only available from one company. Zigbee is the more flexible, open protocol with chips available from multiple manufacturers, and can be configured for any short-range wireless task, but it uses the crowded 2.4GHz band.

The new Echo Plus includes a built-in Zigbee hub, perhaps for that reason. Hue, for example, uses the Zigbee standard, so other devices supporting this can work alongside them, such as Tradfri, the Ikea lighting system.

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