Introduction To Z-Wave Plus™

Z-Wave Plus™ is a new step within the Z-Wave certification process, designed to help consumers identify products that take advantage of the recently introduced 'GEN5' Z-Wave hardware platform, also known as 500 Series or 5th Generation Z-Wave. Z-Wave Plus certified solutions feature a selected set of extended features and capabilities that enhance the end user experience and make Z-Wave installations even faster and easier to install and set up.

Z-Wave has led the market in interoperable smart devices for the home since the first Z-Wave product was certified in 2004. With the introduction of the GEN5, Z-Wave 500 series hardware platforms, Z-Wave saw its ecosystem bolstered with new capabilities – including increased range, extended battery life, Over-The-Air upgrading (OTA), additional RF channels and more.

Products with Z-Wave Plus™ are fully backwards compatible with existing Z-Wave products!

For consumers, homeowners, integrators and service providers, these enhancements offer tremendous benefits in terms of faster and easier installations, more extensive device profiles, improved self-healing and longer battery life. With the new Z-Wave Plus certification program, the Z-Wave Alliance is introducing a series of packaging logos that will be located on every Z-Wave Plus™ certified product, informing the consumer this product incorporates the enhanced capabilities of the Z-Wave 500 series.

Features

• 50% improvement in battery life
• 67% improvement in range
• 250% more bandwidth
• Three F channels for improved noise immunity and higher bandwidth
• New Plug-and-Play network-wide inclusion functions
• Improved self-healing and fault tolerance with Explorer Frame feature
• Standardized method for Over-The-Air firmware updates (OTA)
• Improved product information capture for product certification database