Final month, we launched the House Assistant Join ZWA-2, our tackle the absolute best Z-Wave adapter. Based mostly
I’m Keith
Through the launch, one piece of suggestions we frequently obtained was that individuals wished extra flexibility in the place they might place Join ZWA-2 of their residence — usually far-off from their House Assistant system. It was no simple feat (extra on that beneath), however we have been in a position to construct an answer that lets you put it wherever you may have a community connection.
This experimental firmware will let you not solely leverage the Wi-Fi chip contained in the Join ZWA-2, but in addition use it with different {hardware} to facilitate using the much-requested PoE. 🎉 This new firmware is just doable due to the second-generation platform we constructed Join ZWA-2 on, which is open by design, permitting you to tinker and prolong the system you personal. Each piece of House Assistant {hardware} displays Nabu Casa and the inspiration’s philosophy of fixed evolution, and the software program it launches with is only the start. Each time we consider a cool new functionality, we are going to work collectively so as to add it.
If you wish to begin utilizing your Join ZWA-2 with Moveable Z-Wave at this time
Getting began
House Assistant Join ZWA-2 related to a Waveshare ESP32-S3-ETH
NOTE: This firmware is experimental. Don’t use it for those who’re on the lookout for probably the most secure Z-Wave expertise.
To get began utilizing your Join ZWA-2 over your native community, you should utilize one of many two following configurations:
- Wi-Fi – the brand new firmware might be put in on the Join ZWA-2 and use its built-in Wi-Fi chip to speak over your community.
-
PoE – the brand new firmware might be put in on an exterior improvement board
that helps Energy-over-Ethernet (PoE); Join ZWA-2 will use its inventory firmware and can plug into this new system through USB.
First, earlier than putting in this new firmware, be certain that to again up your Z-Wave community and guarantee your House Assistant occasion is operating model 2025.10.2 or later. Solely after these steps do you have to use the toolkit web site for Moveable Z-Wave
This firmware has confirmed to work effectively in our lab and residential environments, however the actual world is a special place; your native community and Z-Wave community would possibly behave otherwise. Because of this, we’re searching for your suggestions. In the event you attempt it out, please tell us about your expertise – good or dangerous, transient or long-winded – by leaving a remark beneath. We’re desirous to understand how and the place we will enhance it!
The Moveable Z-Wave experiment
Earlier than we launch any of our {hardware} merchandise, we attempt to get our pre-production batch to as many testers as doable – most are hobbyists and tinkerers from the group, and naturally, the very first thing they have a tendency to do is get out the screwdriver and open it up (to be honest, it’s designed to be simple to open — no glue, no clips). When wanting on the insides of Join ZWA-2, they have been immediately greeted with an ESP32 chip, and have been equally excited and confused. It was initially included simply as a USB controller, and sure, an ESP32-S3 is a bit overkill for this particular process, however we wished to offer the system room to develop. This brings us to the experiment we’re sharing with you at this time…
Making issues mesh
While you use a Z-Wave adapter with House Assistant, which depends on the Z-Wave JS add-on, they use USB to speak through a specialised Z-Wave serial protocol. And sure, it’s technically doable to run this Z-Wave serial protocol over your community (serial-over-IP), however our testing reveals that it’s not as dependable or as simple as we’d like. Some components of the Z-Wave serial protocol are latency (delay) delicate, particularly the acknowledgment of Z-Wave packets. In case your community is busy and decides to take its candy time with a kind of important packets, your Z-Wave system’s connection can day out and fail. This may stall Z-Wave system communication, and even fully break it.
For Z-Wave to work over a community, we have to deal with the latency-sensitive components on the precise system; all the things else may be forwarded over the community. That is the place ESPHome
To assist make this all doable, we added Z-Wave help to ESPHome
House Assistant related to the ZWA-2 through its built-in Wi-Fi chip.
House Assistant related to the ZWA-2 through the PoE module.
ESPHome handles serial message acknowledgments internally, then leverages its API (particularly its Protobuf implementation
Efficiency
Wi-Fi could be very handy, however the million-dollar query is: how will it influence your Z-Wave community? To search out out, we ran some benchmarks to see how Moveable Z-Wave stacks as much as its USB counterpart.
In comparison with a direct serial (USB) connection, an information packet will take longer to journey between House Assistant/Z-Wave JS and your Z-Wave community when routed via your native community. On a community with solely a low to reasonable workload, the extra delay could be very small and is mostly not noticeable. That stated, in case your community is closely careworn or the Wi-Fi sign is poor, it’s best to anticipate packets to take longer to maneuver round, which might result in a perceivable delay. It might probably nonetheless management your lights and different units, however it could be a bit slower. Listed here are some numbers illustrating the standard latency that we have been in a position to obtain throughout our take a look at environments:
| Connection sort | Min (ms) | Max (ms) | Imply (ms) |
|---|---|---|---|
| USB | 4 | 9 | 5.36 |
| Ethernet | 15 | 32 | 25.14 |
| Wi-Fi | 15 | 92 | 29.16 |
Your outcomes will possible differ considerably, particularly in much less preferrred situations and environments. As an example, for those who place your Join ZWA-2 in a spot with actually poor Wi-Fi connectivity, you would possibly discover units not reflecting their precise state or different buggy conduct. Keep away from utilizing VPNs or different complicated community routing or configuration, as that may add latency. Additionally, don’t fear about Wi-Fi interfering together with your Z-Wave community, as they function on completely completely different radio frequencies that don’t work together. I feel with a wholesome dose of frequent sense, you’ll find an amazing spot that will get each nice Wi-Fi connectivity whereas properly optimizing your Z-Wave community
Thanks
This challenge was dropped at you by a collaboration between Nabu Casa and the individuals beneath from the Open House Basis. None of this may be doable with out the help of House Assistant Cloud subscribers and those that care about Z-Wave and have bought the House Assistant Join ZWA-2. Thanks!
Because of Dominic, founding father of Z-Wave JS, for shortly leaping in on this challenge, including help to Z-Wave JS, and constructing the browser set up tooling.
Because of Nick and Jesse for his or her help with the ESPHome implementation.
Because of Steven for making the brand new Open House Basis toolbox web site to permit simple set up of the experiment.
FAQs
Q: Is the Moveable Z-Wave experiment restricted to the House Assistant Join ZWA-2?
A: Theoretically, it ought to work with different Z-Wave adapters, however to this point we’ve solely examined it with the ZWA-2. The code is a part of ESPHome 2025.10
Q: Is the Moveable Z-Wave experiment restricted to House Assistant?
A: No. It’s made to work immediately with Z-Wave JS. In the event you use Z-Wave JS v15.15.0, both standalone or with one other sensible residence platform, you’ll be able to use it, too! Configure Z-Wave JS to connect with esphome://.
Q: Can I take advantage of Ethernet as an alternative of Energy-over-Ethernet?
A: Sure. Use a Energy-over-Ethernet injector together with the Waveshare ESP32-S3-ETH board
