HomeSeer Z-NET PRO Network-Connected 800 Series Z-Wave Long Range & Zigbee 3.0 Interface

Terrific new product. Fast, versatile, easy to install and upgrade from prior zwave interfaces. it also increased my zwave coverage area. Well done HomeSeer!

This was an upgrade from "Znet" to get Zwave long range, and allow some ZigBee devices to be added to the network. The upgrade went smooth for me. I followed the online documentation for upgrading my particular hardware. The documentation was okay, a little confusing here and there, I followed it to the letter. Once I got the Pro online and talking with my network I could almost immediately see that it has a better radio, faster CPU and more memory inside it. I had two nodes that were unreliable at best. Now both have been *very* reliable, and both are running on Zwave mesh, not the LR network. I have over one hundred physical devices, and several hundred reported features on those devices, and when the network is busy the old "Znet" would noticeably struggle to keep up. The "Znet Pro" doesn't have those issues, messages are clearly processed faster, voice messages come out of speakers faster, with far less lag. Even nodes that are relatively distant from the radio, which require at least 1 hop, are noticeably faster. We have one of the beta mm wave presence sensors, with this sensor, walking into a room that is actively being dimmed to shut off the lights, now stops, mid dimming, and brings the lights back up to full brightness. With "Znet" it would almost always dim to off, then turn back on. Scene buttons are more responsive. Scenes process faster. The device itself is smaller, and more refined. Its is installed using USB C for power, and has a wired connection to the network. We have several Zwave door locks that it is having trouble with. 1 of the locks it registers in all the interfaces as up and healthy, but the system doesn't recognize it as a lock and it can't be controlled via the network (they are locally functional though). The other locks are all reported as dead. All locks were working before the upgrade. I'm not too concerned about the issue, they likely need to be reregistered (tell the controller to reread the device information, and press the zwave button on the device). I have several Zwave LR devices that I have added to the network since installing Znet Pro and all are working well. In particular distant devices in the garage that are working nicely. I considered upgrading the radio in the old device, but this was the better upgrade as it adds new features and is significantly faster then the old device.

I had left a four-star review earlier citing some issues with documentation and the way static IP addresses were handled.

I am changing my review. HomeSeer actually reached out to me to clarify the issues that I was having with the device and they were very responsive to my feedback and actually updated the documentation based on my experience and some of the things I discovered while troubleshooting my issues.

They also explain the reasoning behind not supporting static IP addressing and it actually makes a lot of sense. I'm paraphrasing but, it's really easy to incorrectly set the address or the net mask on your device. Normally you just reset it and you get back to DHCP. The problem is if you've only got one reset button, that also takes out your zigbee and Z-Wave networks and that's a problem.

So I can certainly see why they rely on DHCP addressing; it's just a lot safer.

So yeah not only is the device well thought through, the company is extremely responsive, they stand behind their product, and they've definitely earned the five star review. I just wish I could update my previous review :)

Replaced two Z-NETs and added Zigbee; far more reliable connection to scattered devices; ZWavePlus is a much better interface; ZigbeePlus is intuitively obvious. I started with X10, back when the dinosaurs roamed computing. The switch to Z-Wave was painful, and troubleshooting was annoying. This is home automation as it should be: accessible to anyone, supporting an incredible array of devices, and backed by a mature, ever-improving home automation system. Thank you, HomeSeer.

I have a garage about 200 ft from my house, apparently too far for the Z-Wave signal from my house to reach. When testing a Z-Wave switch to control garage lights from my house, I found the switch couldn't be reliably controlled by the HomeSeer mesh within the house, even after installing a Z-Wave range extender. I had given up until I saw the email re: the Z-Net Pro. Since I have Ethernet in the garage (thanks to a wireless bridge I'd set up to connect an IP camera), it seemed the Z-Net Pro could be connected to my LAN, and allow HomeSeer to control Z-Wave devices in the garage. After getting verification from the helpful folks at HomeSeer, I ordered the Z-Net Pro, easily got it added to my HomeSeer system, and installed it in my garage. I put the garage lights on a Z-Wave switch and added a Z-Wave motion detector, and now have the lighting control I was looking for. I think this is a great product that does the job exactly as advertised. Highly recommended!