Good to know

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  Smart Home Routers are (unfortunately) also called ‘Gateways’, ‘Hubs’, 'Bridges' or 'Relays'.
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  The compatibility of new Smart Home Products with Smart Home Routers depends on whether the same radio frequency is shared and software updates provided by router manufacturers. You can compare it with required drivers to integrate new hardware (for example a webcam) with your Windows operating system.
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  To avoid disappointments, it is advisable to review Smart Home DB's 22,440 Compatibilities of both the Smart Home Routers as well as individual Smart Home Products before you proceed with any purchase.

Why the need for radio frequencies other than Wi-Fi,
such as Z-Wave and Zigbee?

Wi-Fi was originally designed to cover large areas and facilitate high-speed data communication (such as media streaming). Wi-Fi’s drawback by being able to facilitate high-speed data communication is that it is a power hungry radio frequency, which makes it a sub-optimal radio frequency for battery-operated devices, such as door locks, scales and sensors.

Radio frequencies such as Z-Wave and Zigbee were also designed to cover large areas, but, in contrast to Wi-Fi, highly power efficient, which makes them ‘perfect’ radio frequencies for battery-operated devices.

Below a simple table clarifying the key differences between Wi-Fi, Z-Wave and Zigbee:

Variable	Wi-Fi	Z-Wave	Zigbee
High area coverage
Power efficient
High data bandwidth