It’s always good catching up with Avi Rosenthal. Now in his second year as the Chairman of the Z-Wave Alliance board, Rosenthal – unlike most tech executives during interviews – isn’t just a vocal version of a press release.
He’ll pretty much answer any question, even if that question is one he’s constantly asked and, let’s face it, is probably a little irritated by.
But, before we dive into Matter (you knew that’s what I was talking about, right?) let’s catch up with everything Rosenthal had to say about Z-Wave first.
After all, that was the main reason he sat down recently with me at CES 2025 over in Vegas. And the past 12 months, to quote the Z-Wave Chairman directly, have been “a banner year” for the smart home standard.
“All of the things are pointing in the right direction,” he explained to me in one of the many, many meetings rooms booked out at the Venetian Expo for the biggest show in tech.
“We’ve increased membership, we’ve increased certified products, and Z-Wave Long Range, in the US, has really taken off.
“In terms for initiatives for 2025, we have three of them… the extension of Z- Wave Long Range into Europe, an improvement on S2 security, and battery-less technology.”
Regarding the security aspect, Rosenthal was keen to point out that Z-Wave is already industry leading on that front.
“We set the gold standard for cyber security in the marketplace,” he explained. “We are now going to up our game with S2 v2; we already adhere to or exceed all of the cyber trust marks and all of the European cyber trust regulations.”
But it’s that promise of battery-less devices that will no doubt get most of the attention.
Rosenthal explained that he expects Z-Wave to be the first RF technology protocol to “fully embrace battery-less sensors.”
He stated that kinetic energy harvesting would operate within a full stack and the full bandwidth of Z-Wave devices.
“So it’s not a limiting factor at all,” he explained. “Unlike other RF technologies out there that limit the range or limit the bandwidth in order to achieve battery-less, ours will be full stack, full range for both Z-Wave, classic and Z-Wave Long Range.”
Rosenthal told me we can expect to see the likes of water sensors, door window sensors, door locks and remote controls landing with battery-less tech on board, in the coming months.
So it’s an exciting 12 months ahead for Z-Wave then but what of Matter, the connectivity standard rival that Rosenthal has told me in the past, he looks at as both competition and an opportunity?
I put it to the Z-Wave man that his Alliance had maybe stolen a march while Matter has spent the past 18 months or so ironing out teething issues.
“I’m not sure that we’ve benefited,” he told me. “Are we riding the same wave of excitement within smart home? By all means.
“Z-Wave alone installs more than 35 million devices a year, and we are but a small portion of the IoT space.
“Interoperability, in a general theory, is a wonderful, wonderful goal to have within any industry, within any environment,” he explained. “We absolutely agree that interoperability will be key to furthering the ecosystem of the smart home.
“We do not perceive any other technology as an us versus them. All technologies have a proper solution for a problem. You as the engineer get to decide what that right technology is,” he continued.
“Do I feel like there are benefits to using one technology over the other? Absolutely. Does it mean that my technology is always the right technology for every problem to solve? Absolutely not.
“The beauty of what we are doing within the Z-Wave ecosystem is giving the engineers and developers more choices when they’re developing products for consumers, for industrial, for commercial, for enterprise.
“Our goal as the Alliance is to keep giving more and more choices to companies as they develop their products.”
Rosenthal was keen to stress that these choices aren’t always Z-Wave specific and that the Alliance is constantly looking to evolve and work with other standards.
“We are in talks with CSA,” he explained – referring to the Connectivity Standards Alliance; the guys behind the Matter smart home standard. “We are in talks with LoRa. We are in talks with Wi-Fi.
“None of us should be considered an island. We should all be considered as connected by bridges.
“Today, we have lots of Z-Wave members that build gateways, controllers and hubs, with multiple radios in them and multiple bridges.
“There is no technical reason why a Z-Wave device cannot be controlled or control a Matter device, a Thread device, a Wi-Fi device or a Bluetooth device. It is merely an evolution of software development to allow for that to happen.”
The likes of the Homey Pro and Aeotec’s SmartThings hub are both examples of the types of devices Rosenthal was referring to, where you can create automations and scenes with smart home devices across a rage of protocols, ecosystems and standards.
By acknowledging the importance of interoperability and the role of standards like Matter, it’s clear that Rosenthal and Z-Wave are all for choice and flexibility, for both developers and consumers.
And, by fostering collaboration with other technologies and encouraging the development of multi-protocol devices, Z-Wave clearly wants to remain a key player in the ever-evolving smart home market.