You and me both my friend.
I understand the dilemma, trust me, I really do and if you guys have some ideas, I’m willing to work with you all as I know Z-Wave has it’s place.
We aren’t giving up on Z-Wave, in fact, we have a mmWave and a Button Controller in the works that is Z-Wave.
But for the more nice products, Fan Switch and Fan/Light Canopy Module, these are next to impossible to produce for us in Z-Wave because the numbers just aren’t there.
To put it in perspective, even our Zigbee numbers are low on those devices (bc there’s only so many fans in people’s houses). We’ve only produced two batches of the fan switch in Zigbee and are just starting to produce the second one. We even ordered the minimum quantity for those devices which is 3k units (so 6k total). We produced the fan switch just over a year ago.
The Fan/Light Canopy Module is suffering low sales now too. My theory is that it’s bc no one knows what it does except for people who ordered the LZW36, but that’s a marketing problem for me to handle, not a demand problem.
Anyway, my point is, we have to be strategic in where we spend our money. If we’re not getting the numbers we want in Zigbee, which outsells Z-Wave 4-1 at this point (comparing the 2-1/Dimmer switches), that would mean it would take a year and a half to sell through 3k units, which is not great and idk if the manufacturer would even consider those volumes.
Now, I could make the argument that the R&D costs are lower on Z-Wave since we wouldn’t have to pay for ETL/UL, tooling costs, etc (since it’s already covered by the Zigbee variant) and that does help. But still, our break even would be more around 1,000 or so units or a years worth of selling (if all goes to plan, which it never does).
This is my recommendation. I was a Z-Wave fan for a long time (it’s where we started) and I appreciate the technology. However, and this is my opinion, I know there will be alternative opinions, which is fine - Z-Wave is such a niche protocol that pigeon holed itself by not trying to partner with any of the big companies (Amazon, Google, Apple, etc).
Idk if this was laziness, or a strategic decision on their part, but it started back when they didn’t even try to partner with Amazon (I think it was back in 2017/2018) and Zigbee won the contract with their Echos. Regardless, it wasn’t a great decision and it’s basically a technology that only power users use.
Zigbee has caught up to Z-Wave in terms of what it can do and I anticipate Thread/Matter to do the same thing. In fact, our Blue Series has everything the Red Series has and works with more hubs. Sure, there is Long Range, the fact that Z-Wave runs on a different band than WiFi and has better security, but again, that is only something power users and B2B customers care about (in my opinion and being in the industry for 8ish years).
We aren’t writing off Z-Wave. As mentioned, we have a mmWave switch in the works as well as a Button Controller that we just got alpha samples of that will be Z-Wave. We also have the 2-1/Dimmer switch. The only variants we don’t have available in Z-Wave is the Fan and Fan/Light Switches.
For future products, we’ve made the decision to lead with Zigbee (and now Thread/Matter) because those are bigger sellers for us and help us fund more projects faster (be it new innovation or Z-Wave variants).
Thread/Matter has surprised me. The 2-1/Dimmer has already almost caught up to the Zigbee version of the switch. I realize it’s pre-sale so there may be more hype around it, but the other thing Thread/Matter allows us to do is target Apple and Google users which Zigbee/Z-Wave do not.
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Ok, now that you have a background and understand where we are coming from, let’s think of some solutions.
The Fan and Fan/Light Canopy are the only ones not supported by Z-Wave right now, so are these the ones you are wanting to develop? If so, let me do some break even analysis(es?) and maybe we can do a crowdfund on our website.
We will still have to order the minimum amount, but I guess if everything is paid for and we break-even, then the extra inventory will just be a bonus.