Ever Trend Zone It’s always good to catch up with Avi Rosenthal. Now in his second year as 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 you’re constantly asked and, let’s face it, it probably irritates you a little.
But, before we dive into the Matter (you knew that’s what I was talking about, right?), let’s catch up on everything Rosenthal had to say about Z-Wave first.
After all, that was the main reason he sat down with me recently at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. And the last 12 months, to quote Z-Wave’s president directly, have been “an exceptional year” for the smart home standard.
“Everything is pointing in the right direction,” he explained to me in one of the many, many meeting rooms reserved at the Venetian Expo for the largest technology show.
“We’ve increased membership, we’ve increased certified products, and Z-Wave Long Range, in the US, has really taken off.
“In terms of initiatives for 2025, we have three of them… the extension of long-range Z-Wave to Europe, an improvement in the security of the S2 and battery-free technology.”
As for the security aspect, Rosenthal highlighted that Z-Wave is already an industry leader on that front.
“We set the gold standard for cybersecurity in the market,” he explained. “Now we are going to up our game with S2 v2; We already meet or exceed all cyber trust marks and all European cyber trust regulations.”
But it’s that promise of battery-free devices that will undoubtedly get the most attention.
Rosenthal explained that he hopes Z-Wave will be the first RF technology protocol that “fully embraces battery-free sensors.”
He stated that kinetic energy harvesting would work within a full stack and with the full bandwidth of Z-Wave devices.
“So it’s not a limiting factor at all,” he explained. “Unlike other RF technologies that limit range or bandwidth to achieve battery-free operation, ours will be full-stack and full-range for both Z-Wave, classic and long-range Z-Wave.”
Rosenthal told me that we can expect to see water sensors, door window sensors, door locks and remote controls landing with battery-free technology on board in the coming months.
So there’s an exciting 12 months ahead for Z-Wave, but what about Matter, the rival to the connectivity standard that Rosenthal has told me in the past, which he sees as both competition and opportunity?
I told the Z-Wave man that his Alliance had perhaps gotten ahead of itself while Matter had spent the last 18 months ironing out teething problems.
“I’m not sure we benefited,” he told me. “Are we on the same wave of enthusiasm within the smart home? Without fail.
“Z-Wave alone installs more than 35 million devices a year, and we are just a small portion of the IoT space.
“Interoperability, in general theory, is a wonderful goal within any industry, within any environment,” he explained. “We absolutely agree that interoperability will be key to promoting the smart home ecosystem.
“We don’t perceive any other technology as us versus them. Every technology has a suitable solution to a problem. “You, as an engineer, can decide what the right technology is,” he continued.
“Do I feel there are benefits to using one technology over the other? Absolutely. Does it mean that my technology is always the right technology for each problem to be solved? At all.
“The beauty of what we are doing within the Z-Wave ecosystem is giving engineers and developers more options when developing consumer, industrial, commercial and enterprise products.
“Our goal as an Alliance is to continue to provide more and more options to companies as they develop their products.”
Rosenthal wanted to emphasize that these options are not always specific to Z-Wave 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 connected by bridges.
“Today, we have many Z-Wave members building gateways, controllers and hubs, with multiple radios 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’s just an evolution of software development to allow that to happen.”
Companies like Homey Pro and Aeotec’s SmartThings hub are examples of the types of devices Rosenthal was referring to, where automations and scenes can be created with smart home devices across a variety of protocols, ecosystems and standards.
By recognizing the importance of interoperability and the role of standards like Matter, it is clear that Rosenthal and Z-Wave promote choice and flexibility, for both developers and consumers.
And, by encouraging 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.
