Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5 Plus, Z-Wave Plus USB to Create Your Own Z-Wave Hub, SmartStart and S2 Enabled, Works with Raspberry Pi 4, Compatible with SmartThings, HomeSeer and Others

I have Home Assistant running on Raspberry Pi 4 with USB SSD, along with this Z-Stick - very specifically Gen5+. I think it's now working and stable.It's not been without pain - when you're automating a home it's fun, challenging, convenient and safe - but when it goes wrong and you're traveling and family is home, it becomes urgent and very inconvenient if the components don't work.I had a previous Gen 5 from experimenting a few years ago. I figured it was time to revive my project so this year I researched again and determined that a Z-Stick 7 was appropriate. It was a disaster - there are known problems, and after upgrading the firmware and seeing the Z-wave network lose it's marbles a couple of times, and a complete reset and rebuild ground-up, research said go back to Gen 5+. I had to ignore the Gen 5 I had sitting in my drawer.So I've spent 3x what I should have on Aeotec for wanting the best of the pick.Now it's working, I'm impressed with the combination, but per the headline - do your homework and be prepared to spend time researching if you have problems.

Added the device to my home assistant and it was detected and got configured with no issues. Was able to add my Thermostat to the network and works with solid connectivity for the last 2 months

Plugged in, followed Home Assistant's simple instructions, added a device and moved on with my day - you can find cheaper options, but this seems to be reliable so far

We have been using this with home assistant for a couple of months to control a dozen switches and dimmers. It has been working perfectly. I was initially going to buy the Gen7 version but research uncovered that the Gen7 chipset if faulty and doesn't handle large z-wave networks well while this Gen5 works without issue on the same z-wave network.When I purchased this the Gen 7 dongle was cheaper. It appears that the buggy Gen7 chips are the reason that Gen7 devices can be found at better prices than the Gen5 devices.

I use mine with openhab on Linux. Works great most of the time. Had one little problem, and customer support was over the top! Fixed my corrupt database file and got my server online.