Re: HA Primer - Pos and cons of X-10, Z-wave, Insteon, UPB

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

>> z-troller

There's a high irony content in that name when you consider that the most
recent positive posts come from a person who indeed appears to have "fallen
from the sky" into CHA.  It could be genuine, but it always looks like
someone's sock puppet when the first post they make here seems so
serendipitous.

I've been looking for more info on why at least one manufacturer increased
the number of maximum hops and unless something's wrong with Google, there
just isn't much discussion about Z-wave out there on the net.

Results 1 - 10 of about 39 English pages for z-wave max hops. (0.21 seconds)

Most of the Google Groups searches lead to discussions by Dave, Dean Roddey
and sometimes me.  The lack of hits made me realize how many more X-10 units
there are on the market (the site below says 5 million and still growing)
than Z-Wave.

I still like what David Rye said on CocoonTech:

http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?act=ST&f=7&t=2129 (very bottom)

"These new technologies haven't yet been around long enough to even know
what problems they have."

I find Zen-sys themselves a little shady when they say "unlimited signal
range" although I am sure that the word "virtually" in this case is used to
make the lie not quite so bald-faced.

"Z-Wave?s dynamic routing principle, integrated into the technology, secures
a virtually unlimited signal range, as each of the Z-Wave devices repeats
the signal from one device to the next. The same routing principle ensures
the RF-signals are routed around radio dead spots and signal reflections
thereby securing a highly robust transmission covering the entire home."

http://support.zen-sys.com/modules/GettingStarted/?id=34&chk=6bd049add5fccc0
683bc30b27b33f0dc

If I understand the mesh network and max hops principles correctly, that
paragraph is just total BS.  The range is as far as max hops allows, and not
a hop further.  Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I seem to remember they
limited the max hops in the first place primarily because network latency
increases with each added hop.

--
Bobby G.