With the demise of Insteon, I needed to reassess my smart home setup. I really like my ISY994i which was an upgrade to the older ISY99. So I have been doing this for awhile. I don't really want to move to some other system, but need to plan for future maintenance. I used an Insteon hub strictly for Alexa integration. Thanks to the help from a few people on this forum I upgraded my firmware to v5.3.4 and set up an ISY Portal subscription. After a little work fixing some scenes I have Alexa working better than it did before. The Insteon hub is now decommissioned.

I ordered (and received) a Z-Wave Plus module for my ISY994 so I would be able to maintain the system in the future. My questions are regarding any other requirements for Z-Wave devices. The web site is a little sparse.

1) I have seen references to a Z-Wave 500 "dongle". Do I need an additional dongle of some kind or is the module all I need?

2) It seems like the module will support 300 and 500 series. Is the what "Plus" means? 

3) I have also seen references to S2 security. Do I have this with the module or does this require a Polisy and a Z-Wave 700 dongle?

Thanks!

Brian

@bigdog

1) I have seen references to a Z-Wave 500 "dongle". Do I need an additional dongle of some kind or is the module all I need?

The ISY994i-zw originally came with a Z-wave 300 series receiver / transmitter installed. As best I can recall near the end of 2019 UDI released a new firmware for the ISY that supported the newer z-wave 500 series of transmitters / receivers.

Z-wave is backwards compatible, so if you have series 300 light switches, they will work with the newer 500 series transmitter / receiver in the ISY994i.

If you have an older ISY with the original 300 series z-wave card, you can order from UDI a newer 500 series card to replace it. You can do the upgrade yourself. It's only 4 screws and a simple swap.

Series 500 offers enhanced distance, and several other improvements over the 300 series specification.

Like all technology, the z-wave specification is constantly evolving. You can purchase series 300, 500, and 700 products. Since they are all backwards compatible, they will work, but to benefit from the newer features of the 700 series you would have to have a network of all 700 products.

Just as an FYI the series 800 specification is now being discussed and will soon be completed. But since the series 700 products just became readily available in the last two years, I don't expect to see series 800 products anytime soon.

2) It seems like the module will support 300 and 500 series. Is the what "Plus" means? 

Z-wave plus is an update to the z-wave 300 specification. It has a lot of the features added in the z-wave 500 specification. Again all products on the z-wave network must support z-wave plus to offer the best advantage.

3) I have also seen references to S2 security.

There are two levels of security with all z-wave devices. S0 and S2. S2 is new and offers much better encryption during the initial handshake that occurs when you pair z-wave devices. This is to prevent someone from snooping your network and being able to hi-jack your z-wave devices. While with most devices this is probably not necessary, if I had a z-wave door lock or heavens forbid a security sensor, I would defiantly want to use only devices that supported S2 security.

Since S2 is new, it hasn't been adopted by every manufacturer out there yet. Only  products labeled S2 have support for S2 security.

4) Do I have this with the module or does this require a Polisy and a Z-Wave 700 dongle?

The Polisy doesn't come with a per-installed z-wave adapter (transmitter / receiver) instead you simply purchase the dongle you want and plug it in via a USB port. The current list of supported z-wave dongles is only the 700 S2 stick from Zooz, but with time I imagine this list will grow.

Thanks for the excellent run down on Z-wave. That clears things up for me completely and probably for others forced to look for other non-Insteon solutions.

With the demise of Insteon, I need to plan for a Z-wave future. Can the Z-wave module be added to the 994i that I have to enable Z-Wave?
 

5 hours ago, Larry Lovering said:

With the demise of Insteon, I need to plan for a Z-wave future. Can the Z-wave module be added to the 994i that I have to enable Z-Wave?
 

Yes you can order the Zwave 500 dongle for ISY but a much wiser move is to get Polisy with a Zwave 700 stick. The initial expense is higher, but by far a smarter move. Also, starting a Zwave network on ISY on Polisy is easier than migrating Zwave from ISY to ISY on Polisy.

Edited April 27, 20223 yr by asbril

I have had my ISY for about two years and it is working fine.   I purchased the ISY with a Z-wave board installed and have determined it to be a series 500 but have never done anything with Z-wave. I am very happy with the control it gives me over my Insteon devices; however, barring someone picking up the Insteon line, I like everyone else need to find something else to migrate to before the inevitable failure of the PLM.

I have started looking into Z-wave the more information and the responses above have been helpful but lead me to more questions.
From what I'm hearing about Z-wave:

•     There are several generations of devices: series 300, 500, 700 and in development 800.
•     Each series has some added features and updates.
•     The series are backwards compatible with each other, however you loose the added benefits in you mix the series devices.
•     I hear the there is no plan to make a series 700 board for the ISY 994i.

My questions are:

• As I said, my ISY is fairly new and working fine performing all the functions I currently need and I am not in a position to purchase a Policy at this time. With my 500 series ISY Is it possible to control series 500 devices with all their functions but control 700 series devices  in a basic mode without bells and whistles, such as turning switch on and off or dim a light up and down?
• When you say that if you mix series you loose the benefits of the later series does that mean even with a series 700 control board having a mixture of 500 and 700 devices  you could not use any of the 700 series upgrades unless you replaced all the 500 devices with 700? And then again when the 800 series is released you would have to  replace the older devices with new in you wanted to use the newer functions?
• I want to try to future proof my system and continue to expand as time goes on without having to backup and replace devices every time there is a new update. From what I have read the Policy seems to be a good way to  go but as I said I am not in a position to get one at this time and I have a lot more to learn about it as well. I still have to deal with the fact that everything is currently based on Insteon and the single point of failure of the notorious PLC. As there is no 700 series board for the ISY is there any other way to for the ISY to control 700 series Z-wave at this time? I really do not want to have to purchase 500 devices now to keep the system running just to replace them down the road

 

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

26 minutes ago, Tinkering said:

I have had my ISY for about two years and it is working fine.   I purchased the ISY with a Z-wave board installed and have determined it to be a series 500 but have never done anything with Z-wave. I am very happy with the control it gives me over my Insteon devices; however, barring someone picking up the Insteon line, I like everyone else need to find something else to migrate to before the inevitable failure of the PLM.

I have started looking into Z-wave the more information and the responses above have been helpful but lead me to more questions.
From what I'm hearing about Z-wave:

•     There are several generations of devices: series 300, 500, 700 and in development 800.
•     Each series has some added features and updates.
•     The series are backwards compatible with each other, however you loose the added benefits in you mix the series devices.
•     I hear the there is no plan to make a series 700 board for the ISY 994i.

My questions are:

• As I said, my ISY is fairly new and working fine performing all the functions I currently need and I am not in a position to purchase a Policy at this time. With my 500 series ISY Is it possible to control series 500 devices with all their functions but control 700 series devices  in a basic mode without bells and whistles, such as turning switch on and off or dim a light up and down?
• When you say that if you mix series you loose the benefits of the later series does that mean even with a series 700 control board having a mixture of 500 and 700 devices  you could not use any of the 700 series upgrades unless you replaced all the 500 devices with 700? And then again when the 800 series is released you would have to  replace the older devices with new in you wanted to use the newer functions?
• I want to try to future proof my system and continue to expand as time goes on without having to backup and replace devices every time there is a new update. From what I have read the Policy seems to be a good way to  go but as I said I am not in a position to get one at this time and I have a lot more to learn about it as well. I still have to deal with the fact that everything is currently based on Insteon and the single point of failure of the notorious PLC. As there is no 700 series board for the ISY is there any other way to for the ISY to control 700 series Z-wave at this time? I really do not want to have to purchase 500 devices now to keep the system running just to replace them down the road

 

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

It's impossible to future proof yourself as new standards are always being developed. 800 was recently announced and at some point 900 will be announced followed by 1000 series and so forth. 

The best way to semi future proof yourself would be to buy the latest series devices available and use them with your particular controller. Ditto when upgrading your controller. Should 800 series controller be available a few years from now when you decide to upgrade them you would get that so it's ready for whatever 800 series devices you may add later.

All series work together. You just don't get the benefits of the higher series such as longer range of using a lower series controller.

If you Google benefits of whatever series, you'll see the only talk about specific zwave capabilities not device specific features. This is because each series change improves zwave communication in itself, not necessarily the individual device features. 

With that said, once youve established a strong mesh in your home, most of the benefits of a higher series becomes moot since you would have reached network density.

Newer devices are faster in generally due to newer processors and other improvements but ultimately the gains in speed isn't enough to warrant ripping everything out and starting over every time a new series comes out. If i had a house full of older 300 series from 10 years ago, I'd probably be willing to do that but not from 500 to 700 series.

Zwave is like smartphones. They come out with something new often but the gains are incremental with the times. Will you notice a difference between a galaxy s21 vs a 22. Probably. But is it enough to drop 1k on that new one? Probably not!

Thank you for your response. As i said, I have just started looking into replacements for Insteon and I kept running into phrases such as " backward compatible" and " to use the benefits of the higher series the devices need to be 100% of that series or it defaults to the lowest device".
 I was concerned that my ISY with a series 500 controller would not be able to control series 700 devices, and if I bought series 500 devices to replace failing Insteon devices now, when I eventual migrate to Policy with a higher series controller I would be stuck with a bunch of series 500 devices in my network that would inhibit the full functionality of future series 700 devices. Kind of one of those catch 22 scenarios you hear about.
What i think I understand you to say is that a series 500 controller will control series 700 devices but only within the series 500 protocols and when I upgrade to series 700 controller I will gain the benefits of the series 700 protocols.
Do I have that right?
Thank you again for your help and response.

 

2 hours ago, Tinkering said:

What i think I understand you to say is that a series 500 controller will control series 700 devices but only within the series 500 protocols and when I upgrade to series 700 controller I will gain the benefits of the series 700 protocols.

The general understanding is that your Zwave mesh network will run at tle lowest common denominator.

I have some 80 Zwave devices, a few of which still are of the 300 series, most are 500 and a few are 700.

One of the most important benefits of 700 series is longer distance and faster speed. In my specific case the distance is not an issue as I have more than enough Zwave devices to have a well working mesh network.

Theoretically the speed of my network should be at the lowest common denominator of 300 series. However I believe that it depends on the route taken by each device. If a device uses a 300 series on the route to the ISY, then that route will be at 300. However if the route only uses 500 series (or 700) then the speed should be of the 500 series.

In my case the 300 series are in a specific corner of my home and I don't think that they are used by (m)any other devices, so they should not slow down my network.

I am slowly transferring my Zwave devices from my ISY to the ISY on Polisy. The latter has a 700 series USB dongle. I think that it is impossible to keep up with the changing Zwave standards (my name is neither Gates, Bezos or Musk) because by the time I would replace all my 300 and 500 series devices with 700 series, the 800 series comes out etc etc. Generally the speed of my network is fine, except in programs that run on a motion sensor, where there can be a seconds delay.

Edited May 1, 20223 yr by asbril

Thank you all for your help and guidance. I feel better about purchasing 700 series devices for the future and dealing with the speed of my ISY's 500 series speed and distance until I can upgrade to  the Policy. Hopefully I will have time to migrate my Insteon system over before the PLM dies again.

So, I’m waiting on a Polisy to come in the mail. I have an ISY-994i (non z-wave). When I look at the UDI store, they mention only one expansion board for the ISY. It is listed as using Z Wave plus. That’s not the 500 board, right?

When my Polisy comes in, I’m going to retask my 994i to use at our lake house and I probably want to start building that out immediately using z wave. 
 

Furthermore the z wave board is listed as “out of stock.”

Link to z wave expansion

Edited May 18, 20223 yr by ryarber
Add link and additional info

Z-wave plus is the 500 series, this is the board currently used in the ISY994

Z-wave plus v2 is the 700 series, which is used in the Polisy

You might want to send UDI an email to find out when the 500 series board will be back in stock.