The 400 series suffered from a marketing mistake early on – the memory that holds the firmware is One-Time-Programmable (OTP). Fortunately, as we’ve seen they are all completely interoperable so no problem there.
A small number of 300 series chip based devices are Z-Wave Plus – but that number is quite small and there are probably none left on the shelves though you could have one installed in your home. Many 300 series devices are still in the market though the chips have reached end-of-life so there are limited inventories left. The flaws were quickly fixed and the series replaced with the largely firmware compatible 300 series which had a long and plentiful life. They had some significant power issues making them difficult to use as a battery powered device among other problems. The developers became so fearful of the curse of the even series they skipped the 600 series and jumped straight to 700. Much like the Star Trek Movies, all of the even series chips were flawed and quickly obsoleted. Z-Wave has had some mistakes along the way, after all no one is perfect. Granted it is only at the slower 9600 bps but it still works! So the lamp dimmer you bought in 2004 is still able to talk to the latest SmartThings hub. Even the latest chips can talk to the early 100 series chips. The amazing thing though all of these improvements is that they have all remained 100% backward compatible. There are many other enhancements along the way including longer range, better RF sensitivity, lower power, more peripherals and in particular the AES encryption engine. Thus, the increase to 40K with the 300 series and 100K with the 500 series. This was fast enough to turn a light or two on or off but as things progressed and you want to slowly change the color of a dozen or more bulbs, then you need a faster data rate. Initially the data rate was only 9600 bits per second. The timeline shows the constant improvement and evolution of Z-Wave. The timeline shows the technology trajectory that Z-Wave has traveled since its inception in 2002. If you have a choice between a Z-Wave Plus device and a non-Plus device, I recommend you choose the Z-Wave Plus device because the Plus device will work better. All Z-Wave devices are 100% interoperable and backwards compatible so a Z-Wave Plus device can communicate with any non-Plus device without issue. This may be used as a backup should your Z-Wave interface were to ever fail.There is a lot of confusion between Z-Wave Plus and older non-Plus devices.Ī product that is Z-Wave Plus means it has passed a rigorous certification process and thus is likely to be more reliable and have fewer issues than non-Plus devices. Store your existing interface in a safe place.If the blue status light is blinking, then press its control button once. Z-Stick: Unplug the stick from its USB port.
You must do this to avoid "Home ID" conflicts with Z-NET.
In your HS3 web interface, open PLUG-INS, then Z-Wave, then select Controller Management.This article is recommended only if upgrading from another Z-Wave interface. This option only works on the Z-NET and SmartStick+.