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so that smartphone in your pocket or the smartphone you're using to watch this

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video right now almost certainly supports wi-fi bluetooth and some kind

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of cellular connection and seeing as how modern phones are designed to be

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do-it-all devices you might think that it has every important wireless protocol

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covered but wait there are a couple others with similar names that are

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actually quite widespread in the consumer space zigbee and z-wave but

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what exactly are they and why do they exist is the tech industry just trying

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to fleece us because they think consumers perceive anything with the

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letter z in it to be edgy and cool not quite it's like this zigbee and z-wave

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are primarily focused on smart home applications rather than other kinds of

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data transmission but hold on a sec james i have smart wi-fi controlled

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lights and bluetooth speakers that work just fine why do we need totally

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different protocols just so i can unlock my front door from my phone it turns out

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that zigbee and z-wave have real technical advantages that make

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them better performing and more reliable for home automation a big one is power

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consumption you see although wi-fi is incredibly versatile it hogs a lot of

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power which makes sense considering wi-fi is used for bandwidth heavy

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applications like streaming video and gaming but you simply don't need a whole

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lot of bandwidth to tell your front door to lock your garage to shut or your

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smart light bulb to turn pink and even something like a smart home security

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sensor can trigger an alarm simply by telling the base station hey this door

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is open this means that you don't need very much speed which results in

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huge power savings very important for smart home devices which are often small

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and designed to be placed anywhere without the need to be plugged in both

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zigbee and z-wave operate at speeds well below 300 kilobytes per second meaning

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that they aren't much faster than an old dial-up modem

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but the result in power savings mean that many smart home devices can last

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for over two years without needing a battery swap but hold on again james you

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might be saying bluetooth is also quite low power so why don't we just use that

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well as anyone who's ever gotten too far from the bluetooth speaker knows most

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bluetooth revisions are quite range limited which can be a huge problem if

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you're trying to deploy smart home tech in something other than a small

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apartment zigbee and z-wave however work as mesh networks where each device acts

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as a node to send the signal on to the target device so even if your smart home

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hub is downstairs and the thermostat you're trying to control is on the third

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floor your signal can be routed through your smart light fixture and your smoke

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detector to get there and if we're talking about z-wave specifically it

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operates on a lower frequency than wi-fi meaning longer ranges between nodes

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zigbee operates on the more congested 2.4 gigahertz bandwidth which is often

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used by wi-fi though it makes up for this limitation somewhat by being able

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to hop through as many devices as it needs whereas z-wave is limited to just

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four hops and remember that whichever protocol you use many battery-only smart

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home devices aren't designed to be used as hops since

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this would drain the battery faster on the subject of limitations the biggest

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drawback for most people with either zigbee or z-wave is the need for a

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central hub to control your gadgets since neither typical routers nor

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smartphones or tablets come with zigbee or z-wave support built-in you'll need a

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hub of some sort which connects to your router so your phone tablet or computer

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can talk to it via wi-fi it'll then send a zigbee or z-wave signal to the devices

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you're trying to control so in this way they're not as straightforward as wi-fi

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but seeing as so many iot devices have adopted zigbee and z-wave it appears

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that the market has decided the benefits outweigh the costs and although there

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are competing standards out there like insteon and bluetooth mesh zigbee and

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z-wave remain the most common so is one protocol better than the other well

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z-wave's longer range and better interoperability as a proprietary

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standard with more rigorous testing requirements have led many smart home

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enthusiasts to deem it the superior choice but that doesn't mean zigbee is

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bad just do your research for the specific

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product ecosystem you're buying into and make sure any gadget that you're

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thinking about getting doesn't have a ton of reports of buggy software you

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don't want your smart solid shooter to start acting up at three in the morning

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heading to LMG.gigi pia Techquickie so thanks for watching

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guys if you like this video give us a thumbs up hit subscribe and be sure to hit us up in the comment section with

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your suggestions for topics we should cover in the future