Home Assistant is built on privacy, choice, and sustainability. Aligning with these values, they have joined both the Z-Wave Alliance and the Connectivity Standards Alliance to be involved in the development of other smart home standards like Matter and Zigbee. By supporting multiple standards, Home Assistant aims to offer users the freedom to choose the best option for their homes and to contribute to the advancement and innovation of these technologies.
Z-Wave, a smart home standard that uses sub-GHz frequencies to create a reliable mesh network, is widely adopted in devices such as Yale locks and Amazon Ring. The standard is managed by the Z-Wave Alliance, a consortium of companies. Home Assistant, a home automation platform, has supported Z-Wave since its inception. It initially used OpenZWave and transitioned to Z-Wave JS in 2021. Z-Wave JS is an open-source implementation of the Z-Wave protocol developed by Dominic Griesel, who is now working full-time on Z-Wave JS, sponsored by Nabu Casa through Home Assistant Cloud subscriptions.
Today, Home Assistant has announced their membership in the Z-Wave Alliance to achieve official certification for Z-Wave JS. This certification validates Z-Wave JS as a proper implementation of the Z-Wave standard and encourages other companies to adopt it for their products. HomeSeer has already indicated a move to Z-Wave JS, signaling potential growth in the number of companies using the standard.
As a new member of the Z-Wave Alliance, Home Assistant intends to contribute insights from their open-source community to guide the future of the Z-Wave standard in accordance with their Open Home principles. For more information, please visit the Home Assistant’s website here.
