platform, for stronger interoperability and security, and an easier installation process. Z-Wave Long Range (LR) was announced in September 2020, a new specification with an improved range over regular Z-Wave signals. The specification supports a maximum output power of 30 dBm, which can be used to bolster transmission range by up to several miles. In testing, Z-Wave LR had a transmission distance of 1-mile (1.6 km) direct line of sight utilizing +14-dBm output power. Z-Wave LR is an extra 100-kb/s DSSS OQPSK modulation addition to the Z-Wave protocol. The modulation is treated as a fourth channel, allowing gateways to add LR nodes to the existing Z-Wave channel scanning. Z-Wave LR also increases scalability on a single smart-home network by up to 4,000 nodes, a 20x increase compared to Z-Wave. Z-Wave LR operates on low power so that sensors can last for 10 years on a single coin cell. It is backwards compatible and interoperable with other Z-Wave devices. In December 2021, Silicon Labs announced the availability of the Z-Wave 800 system-on-chips and modules for the Z-Wave smart home and automation ecosystem. It is described as secure, ultra-low powered, and wireless, for Internet of Things devices, with an improved battery life as compared to the 700 series. Comparison to other protocols For smart home wireless networking, there are numerous technologies working together. Z-Wave operates on the sub1GHz (low bandwidth) vs 2.4GHz (high bandwidth) to capitalize on the application-level benefits of low power, long range, less RF interference. WiFi and Bluetooth operate on the 2.4GHz bandwidth which manages a lot of traffic among devices that consume a lot of power. Other network standards include Bluetooth LE and Thread. Z-Wave has better interoperability than ZigBee, but ZigBee has a faster data transmission rate. Thread and Zigbee operate on the busy Wi-Fi standard frequency of 2.4 GHz, while Z-Wave operates below 1 GHz, which has reduced noise and congestion, and a greater coverage area. All three are mesh networks. The Z-Wave MAC/PHY is globally standardized by the International Telecommunication Union as ITU 9959 radio, and the Z-Wave Interoperability, Security (S2), Middleware and Z-Wave over IP specifications were all released into the public domain in 2016, and Z-Wave has become a fully-ratified open-source protocol for development. OpenZWave is a library, written in C++ and wrappers and supporting projects, to interface different languages and protocol(s) allowing anyone to create applications to control devices on a Z-Wave