Z-Wave Alliance touts newly certified Z-Wave Long Range devices

The Z-Wave Alliance—an organization that promotes the development and use of the open-source Z-Wave standard in smart homes and smart buildings—is celebrating the growth of the standard’s latest iteration: Z-Wave Long Range (ZWLR).

Earlier this week, the consortium announced the milestone of 125 Z-Wave Long Range certified devices being available on the market. While Z-Wave is not part of the Matter smart home standard, the technology offers an impressive set of features and benefits, starting with its ability to communicate directly with a Z-Wave Long Range hub over distances up to 1.5 miles (line of sight, that is).

Z-Wave Long Range devices can operate on a star network, where each device communicates directly with the hub, reducing latency and simplifying network behavior. A single Z-Wave Long Range hub can support up to 4,000 network nodes on a star network, enabling much larger networks than were possible with the previous-generation technology, which is limited to 232 nodes. This factor alone renders ZWLR attractive for commercial deployments as well as in very large smart homes.

And since ZWLR devices dynamically adjust their transmit power based on their distance from the hub, they exhibit much more conservative energy consumption; that’s great for battery-powered devices such as sensors and smart locks. The Alliance says sensor-type devices can operate on coin-cell batteries for as long as 10 years.

Z-Wave Long Range is backward compatible

ZWLR devices are also backward compatible with the earlier generation of Z-Wave products, and the two device classes can coexist and interoperate on either a star or a mesh network. This means you can mix and match old and new Z-Wave devices on the same network, whether that network’s hub is based on ZWLR or previous-generation Z-Wave technology.

There are a few caveats: First, the Z-Wave hub must have a ZWLR chip to deliver all the benefits of Z-Wave Long Range. Second, regardless of which type of chip is inside the hub, ZWLR devices won’t route traffic for classic Z-Wave mesh-network devices, and classic Z-Wave devices likewise don’t participate in ZWLR star network communications. So, a classic Z-Wave device can operate on a Z-Wave star network–and a ZWLR device can operate on a Z-Wave mesh network–but non-ZWLR devices won’t deliver the same extended range that ZWLR devices can.

And when you add ZWLR devices to a Z-Wave mesh network, you remain limited to the older technology’s 232-node limit (versus the 4,000-node limit on a ZWLR star network). For the typical smart home, however, 232 nodes should be more than adequate.

Developer decisions

While Ring has rolled out an entire new generation of smart home sensors and other devices engineered to use Amazon’s Sidewalk network, where its earlier sensors relied on  Z-Wave technology, the company isn’t rendering those older devices obsolete; they’ll continue to operate as legacy devices in home security systems based on its Ring Alarm and Ring Alarm Pro smart home hubs.

Other companies, including ADT, are standing by Z-Wave. The new ADT Smart Home Security System I reviewed in October 2025, for example, is engineered with Z-Wave and ZWLR, and ADT supports many third-party Z-Wave devices, including the Yale Assure Lock 2 Touch with Z-Wave 800 smart lock that I discussed in that review.

Meanwhile, Silicon Labs, the fabless semiconductor manufacturer that owned the Z-Wave specification and source code (via its acquisition of Zensys, the company that invented Z-Wave), and then open-sourced it in 2019, is at CES demonstrating how developers can design for both ZWLR and Amazon Sidewalk ecosystems with a single solution; namely, the company’s ZG28 system-on-a-chip (SoC) platform.

A sampling of new and recently launched ZWLR devices

Here are a few of the new products that support Z-Wave Long Range (you can see photos of some of these above):

• 2GIG GC Touch Security Panel: A ZWLR-powered smart home hub with a 7-inch touchscreen aimed at custom installers.
• Aeotec SmokeShield: A smoke detector for the European market that boasts wireless range of up to 1 kilometer (3,281 feet). It works with Home Assistant, LG Homey, and Samsung SmartThings smart home hubs (note that is not compatible with the SmartThings Station, which doesn’t have a Z-Wave radio).
• Alfred DB1 Pro Smart Door Lock: Like the Yale Assure Lock 2 Touch mentioned above, Alfred’s smart locks—including the DIY-oriented DB2S model—are equipped with sockets that can accommodate various types of radio modules, including Wi-Fi and ZWLR.
• Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2: A ZWLR adapter with a 12-inch antenna for adding Z-Wave devices to Home Assistant-based smart homes.
• Jasco Slim Door and Window Sensor: A thin contact sensor for home security that senses whether a door or window is open or closed that can withstand being installed outdoors, and the Jasco Z-Wave Long Range (800LR) In-Wall Smart Dimmer for smart lighting control.
• Ultraloq Bolt Z-Wave: One of the most discrete smart locks we’ve encountered, the Ultraloq Bolt Z-Wave boasts wireless range of up to 1,300 feet when paired with a ZWLR smart home hub (it’s also backward compatible with earlier Z-Wave hubs).
• Zooz ZWLR Siren & Chime: Users can upload custom sounds to this smart home gadget and use sensors and other triggers play them on its 90dB onboard speaker.