I see a lot of posts about people who like their Zigbee and Z-Wave products. As I’m setting up the hardware in my home, I’m using Wi-Fi products because I already have Wi-Fi. I don’t see much difference in price. What is the actual benefit of setting up a separate network for home devices? Is there a reason that I should consider setting up one of these networks?
I’ve had the same experience you describe with Zwave, especially the range and response issues, and in hindsight should have used the already reliable WiFi network. Especially since our home layout is a bit unconventional and node placement is not ideal considering the Zwave hop limits. For battery devices that consideration might be different, but I try to avoid those anyway.