In days gone by, if you were planning a mega Z-Wave install you may have paused to consider the maximum number of nodes allowed.
But now that there’s a two-way IP to Z-Wave bridge available most of those limitations go way.
The ZIPR is a Gateway reference design and now it has been rolled out to some large commercial installation we asked Sigma Designs what this means in practical terms.
They told us…
Normally you can have 232 nodes on a single network but companies tie networks together with our Z-Wave for IP (Z/IP) application software layers. The Wynn hotel in Las Vegas has 68,000 nodes in 2,800 rooms where every room is one network with up to 30 nodes in the large suites and all rooms are connected through Z/IP.
The ZIPR is a bi-directional bridge and it’s IPv6 compatible.
The ZIPR is a ‘non-application-specific’ gateway. You simply plug it into an IP network using its Ethernet connection and add it to a Z-Wave network. Instantly, IP addresses will be assigned to every Z-Wave end-point or function. If the IP network is using IPv4 addressing, these will be IPv4 addresses; if IPv6, these will be IPv6 addresses. The user on the IP side can now fully communicate with the Z-Wave network using user datagram protocol (UDP) messages. This is a full-function, bi-directional bridge.
Available now for around $50 : More Z-Wave Posts
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Any suggestions on which consumer HA software supports Z/IP?
From what I can understand this isn’t really something destined for consumer use so not a very useful posting…. Unless I’m wrong?
Hi Jason,
Z/IP is being used widely in commercial space and it is still fairly new to consumer space.
Number of HA software companies is incorporating Z/IP into their products as we speak, and should be on the market shortly.
Tommy – see reply from Sigma Designs above. This is a new reference design that will hopefully come to consumers soon.