z-wave on the move?

Every 3 or 4 months I look around to see where insteon-alternate technologies are moving. Seems like z-wave is becoming more available. The modules look a bit more costly buy also there are a lot more choices. About 2 or 3 insteon module die a year on me. SH is great about replacing them but it is just another to-do to swap them out.

Do folks find z-wave more reliable? More flexible?

Thanks,
Jim

Been using z-wave for many years now and the only issue that I have had is that some of the first hardware models that went out into distribution used an early version (1.xx) of the z-wave protocol which people are obsoleting out and do like to support anymore. Latest stuff works *GREAT* but there are still some incompatabilities. For instance, Schlage uses an extended feature of the z-wave protocol that older (more than a year old) do not support ... some hardware can be upgraded, others cannot due to the size of the larger z-wave stack required to carry the extra classes/protocols. Biggest issue with z-wave: need to have a solid mesh network installed to insure reliable operations. Tools exist to check your mesh and to determine how robust your mesh is. Overall, like both z-wave and zigbee ... z-wave is cheaper than zigbee ...

[jay (support)]

Out of curiosity, what (if any) software/platform are you using to control/automate your Z-Wave network?

HomeSeer Pro with atom 510 uITX/XP/2GB RAM/32GB SSD/realVNC. Been using HomeSeer systems since 2003. Homeseer works relatively closely with Zensys so they have good knowledge of the ins and outs of z-wave that are not highly publicized (such as node ordering DOES effect mesh optimization).
Was too invested in z-wave before zigbee came around so had no interest re-establishing hardware for Control4 (zigbee has much better mesh topology control)

Did some Insteon when they first came out but was not impressed (and is one of the suspects of why our house burned down in 2006 ... switch could have been one of the causes of the fire but it could not be proved beyond a reason of a doubt by the PIs brought in by the insurance company to determine the source of ignition). Replaced about 25% of the original switches that we bought because they ran too hot and died

Came over to see what you had for MAC to get for my bro (loves his MACs) and his Vista ICM and ended up on the forums

[matt (support)]

The public beta of Indigo 6 now supports the Z-Stick 2 and some Z-Wave devices (with additional device support in the works). If you have a Z-Stick 2, then give it a try.