I not too long ago described how a latest flurry of good residence failures made me flip to Residence Assistant, the more and more polished DIY good residence platform that you could host your self with out counting on the cloud. Beginning right this moment, Residence Assistant customers have an superior new toy to play with.
The Residence Assistant Join ZQA-2 ($69) is a brand new good residence adapter with a really tall antenna. And earlier than you ask, it’s not for Matter, the most recent and hottest new factor in good residence. As an alternative, the Join ZQA-2 is all about Z-Wave, an older however extensively used good residence know-how that’s getting renewed consideration due to its new “Lengthy Vary” functionality, which permits for connectivity with Z-Wave LR (Lengthy Vary) shopper gadgets as much as a mile—sure, a mile—away.
Residence Assistant has lengthy supported Z-Wave, along with Zigbee (the good residence customary favored by Phillips Hue) and the aforementioned Matter. (I simply added the Matter integration to my very own Residence Assistant occasion.)
However the Join ZQA-2, which relies on the most recent Z-Wave 800-series chipset, is the primary Z-Wave adapter constructed by and for the Residence Assistant platform, with the group behind Residence Assistant noting that the {hardware} has been “exactly tuned to Z-Wave’s perfect wavelength.”
For these not conversant in Z-Wave, it’s a radio know-how that operates within the sub-1GHz frequency band. This low frequency is good for penetrating stable boundaries, corresponding to partitions, however it additionally avoids interference from Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Zigbee gadgets that each one function within the 2.4GHz frequency spectrum. Greater than 4,500 good gadgets from the likes of Ring, Leviton, Shelly, Yale, and Vivint provide Z-Wave gadgets, making Z-Wave a key ingredient in any Residence Assistant set up.
Earlier generations of Z-Wave gadgets make the most of a mesh community protocol that may assist a most of 232 nodes. The newer Z-Wave 800-powered elements are backward-compatible, however they’ll additionally use the Z-Wave Lengthy Vary protocol to function on a star community that may assist as much as 4,000 (!) nodes.
Nabu Casa, the industrial arm of the Open Residence Basis underneath which Residence Assistant operates, provided me a pattern Join ZQA-2 for analysis. Whereas I haven’t had time to provide it a proper evaluation (I’ve been enjoying with the unit for rather less than per week), I can attest that it was simple to put in and has—to date, anyway—labored like a attraction.
The Join ZQA-2 is available in two elements: a 5 x 5-inch plastic base, and a 12-inch antenna with a 1.5-inch LED section on the prime that serves as a standing indicator. Meeting is straightforward: Screw the antenna into the bottom, use the offered USB-C cable to attach the bottom to your Residence Assistant server (a Raspberry Pi 5 in my case), and that’s just about it.
Assembling the Residence Assistant Join ZQA-2 is a straightforward matter of screwing the foot-long antenna into the 5-by-5-inch base.Ben Patterson/Foundry
Deciding the place to find the Join ZQA-2 is a possible concern. Residence Assistant advises maintaining it away from objects that might trigger interference, corresponding to thick brick partitions, our bodies of water (like fish tanks), different wi-fi transmitters, and wire mesh or steel fixtures (corresponding to server racks).
I admit, I broke the rule and place the ZQA-2 on prime of the wire mesh cupboard that homes my assortment of Raspberry Pi boards, however a fast diagnostics verify confirmed that the radio’s efficiency wasn’t unduly hampered. The antenna’s LED tip will blink yellow to warn you of a “sub-optimal” connection.
The Residence Assistant of us additionally packed in just a few Z-Wave gadgets for me to hook up with the ZQA-2, all of which assist each the usual Z-Wave protocol in addition to Z-Wave LR: a wise plug, a water leak detector, and a wise water valve actuator, all constructed by Z-Wave gadget producer Zooz.
Being that I’m an condo dweller, I wasn’t capable of set up the good water valve gadget, however I did attempt the good plug and the water leak detector, which I configured through the Z-Wave JS management panel. (I run Residence Assistant in a Docker container, in order a brand new Z-Wave person, I first needed to spin up the Z-Wave integration in a separate container, a course of that took all of 20 minutes.)
I didn’t carry out formal testing on the connectivity between the 2 Zooz gadgets and the ZQA-2, however they labored flawlessly on an anecdotal stage. I first linked the water leak sensor through Z-Wave LR and the good plug with customary Z-Wave, after which swapped the protocols.
Ideally, I’d have accomplished some true long-range testing with the brand new antenna—an incredible instance is perhaps inserting the water leak sensor in a indifferent shed that’s, say, 100 yards away from the principle constructing. The Z-Wave Lengthy Vary protocol helps a theoretical vary of 1 mile, line of sight, so one may definitely dream up some ingenious use circumstances.
The Residence Assistant Join ZQA-2 is accessible now on the Residence Assistant web site. I’ll replace my findings as I proceed testing.
