Z-Wave Engine 3.0 - How stable is it today?

[JcBorgs 43]

Have been following some threads about the new Z-Wave Engine 3.0, seems to slowly getting better and better but how stable is it today?

 

Know it would be a big work to do the change as the entire system need to be rebuilt from scratch, have over 100 units in my setup so will take some effort..

 

Have mostly Fibaro devices today, my setup contains the following devices:

23 x Fibaro FGS-213 Relay Switch 1x2.5kW        3 x Fibaro FGS-223 Relay Switch 2x1.5kW        28 x Fibaro FGWPF-102-ZW5 Wall Plug
20 x Fibaro FGMS-001-ZW5 Motion Sensor       18 x Fibaro FGDW-102 Door Sensor                     10 x Fibaro FGSD-002 Smoke Sensor 

  3 x Fibaro FGFS-101-ZW5 Flood Sensor          10 x Fibaro Dimmer 2 FGD-212                              1 x Fibaro FGBS-001 Universal Sensor

  1 x Fibaro FGKF-601 KeyFob                              1 x Fibaro FIBEFGBS-222 Smart Implant.            1 x AeonLabs MultiSensor 6                                

  3 x AeonLabs Door Sensor 7                                3 x AeonLabs Siren                                              2 x Everspring Siren

  4 x Qubino 3-Phase Smart Meter

 

But are leaning to do the jump and do the work to rebuild everything from scratch to be able to move to Z-Wave Engine 3. I could live with some minor issues but would hesitate if there are a lot of problems still with the Z-Wave Engine 3.0, so would appreciate some input from others that are using it today.

 

[petergebruers 1,250]

Engine 3 is for test only. For production, it is still the "older" one though that statement is relative. The main difference is about an internal communication protocol change, mandated by the Z-Wave specification.

 

I expect Fibaro to announce it when "3.0" is ready for production.

 

The real benefit is the implementation of S2 security protocol. That benefit is real - I mean by this if you really needed a bunch of secure devices like door locks then S2 is much better. But that does not change my opinion, 3.0 is not for production yet. For example, "gateway" connections are missing

 

I think there has not been a more recent official statement about 3..0 than this post:

 

So "Z-Wave 3.0 is as early access - I suggest use 2.0 especially when you have old devices like Secure SRT, Z-wave 3.0 will work better is you got new z-wave Plus v2 devices"

 

Note the "v2" in the name of the Z-Wave devices, which you probably haven't seen a lot because the spec says, the manufacturer can (and should iirc) mark them as "Z-Wave Plus"

[JcBorgs 43]

@petergebruers

 

Thanks for the good update!

 

I think the majority of my devices are Z-Wave Plus devices apart from the 2 x Everspring Siren which I honesty could live without. Well the 1 x Fibaro FGBS-001 Universal Sensor is probably also not Z-Wave Plus.. Did go through and replaced all my devices a few years back and then installed only Z-Wave Plus devices.

 

But do understand from your description that the Z-Wave Engine 3.0 is still in Alfa stage and not even ready for early adopters. Actually thought that Fibaro had come longer as it has been available for some time now, but apparently not.

 

@m.roszak & @A.Socha any updates on this?

[petergebruers 1,250]

34 minutes ago, JcBorgs said:

But do understand from your description that the Z-Wave Engine 3.0 is still in Alfa stage and not even ready for early adopters.

Calling it an "alpha" may be a bit too harsh, it is more like "unfinished". It is a public beta, but not recommended for production.

 

At the end of each recent HC3 firmware update revision log, Fibaro states this:

 

Please login or register to see this code.

 

There is no list of compatible/incompatible devices, ... It probably isn't long but then again it is a sign of not being fully "finished" (if such a thing ever exist when we are talking about HA - LOL)

 

The missing gateway function also suggests, some changes under the hood are still necessary.

 

And lastly... I noted to DEV team that 3.0 always tries to include devices in S0 mode if S2 fails, afaik "Zip gateway that was required for certification does not allow to disable security.". If all your devices do S2 that is a good thing but if you include ALL your devices in "secure mode" (because, you cannot disable security) then your network will get issues. My info about this dates from April 2021, it might be outdated, but at that time Fibaro seemed to be very confident about the requirement to bootstrap secure mode.

 

I don't know from memory which of your devices do S2... But most of them support S0. The S0/S2 thing is rarely discussed and rarely relevant because so many gateways like HC2 and HC3 running "2.0 engine" only support S0.

Edited June 19, 2022 by petergebruers