DEWENWILS 800 Z-Wave Dongle, Long Range S2 USB Stick, Compatible with Home Assistant & Other Smart Home Hubs, Plug & Play USB Controller for DIY Smart Home

I typically go with the "name" brands, but I thought I'd give this a try in a new home. Plug and play. Easy to set up with home assistant. Not sure if the antenna helps as most dongles don't have one. I'm using it in a small house, connects directly with everything and LR works great.

Plug and play with Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi 3B. Recognized and paired all my Z-Wave sensors. I am very pleased with this purchase. UPDATE: My installation crashed and a fresh install of home assistant refuses to recognize the dongle. It adds it as hardware but won't do the software installation. There seems to be no way to factory reset this dongle. Be warned. SECOND UPDATE: After resetting with Silicon Labs Simplicity Studio and multiple attempts to reinstall this into Home Assistant I was able to get the system to recognize the dongle. All is well now but I had to do a complete wipe and reinstall of everything. There are several YouTube videos about resetting the dongle and reinstalling it into Home Assistant that are worth watching if you're in the same situation. I've learned my lesson and am backing my system up to the cloud.

Works as expect and the price is good!

Please note this is UNUTHORIZED and uncertified devices, claiming as z-wave long range. Once connected, the range is poor, which explain lack of certification.

Bought this item to add a Z-Wave network to Home Assistant running bae metal on Raspberry Pi. Was able to include the two Honeywell Thermostats after about 30 minutes of getting unit to show up in ZWave JS UI. There seemed to be an issue with the S2 security as the Thermostats never seemed to pair correctly. After two nights and around 4 hours of including/excluding Thermostats, I returned the item in frustration. I purchased the Zooz equivalent. Once received I had everything paired and functioning properly in 10 minutes. I do not recommend this product if you value your time. There was no issue with the return and I received a full refund.

It worked okay but it didn't have the range that I wanted. I think that the antenna is too small. Fo covering my house it was fine but it could not reach the garage 50 feet away. It is easy to install and use. It's fine if you don't need range.

This is a pretty nice little USB dongle. Turns out that a Z-Wave dongle is really just a USB-to-Serial UART device that is likely programmed for a certain frequency range, or is just a software-defined radio that ends up being tuned by the home assistant software. I plugged this into my Linux system and it came up and recognized it with no issues.

This is the 800 Series Z-Wave Long Range (LR) module. It has a USB 2.0 Type A It is a USB dongle that delivers ultra-long wireless coverage of up to 1 mile; designed as a high-performance Z-Wave controller for long-distance smart home device communication. It will support a standard Z-Wave mesh device (250 feet) and Z-Wave Long Range (1 mile) device at the same time, allowing a single Z-Wave gateway to manage mixed Z-Wave networks. Ideal for setting up a long range mess network, the USB stick features true plug-and-play installation; simply connect it to your system. And has advanced S2 security encryption. The USB dongle allows easy migration from older Z-Wave controllers (500, 700, or 800 series); using Z-Wave JS UI v9.9.0 or later, so you can upgrade your existing Z-Wave network smoothly while retaining your current devices. Z-Wave is built strictly for control and status reading. It handles tiny amounts of data efficiently, doesn't bog down your home internet, and continues to function locally even if your home's internet goes down. TIPS FOR OLDER COMPUTERS If you have an older computer/laptop, you made need to install a Z-wave app. The most popular, highly capable option is Home Assistant, which is entirely free. You must plug a dedicated Z-Wave USB stick into one of your laptop's USB ports. This gives the computer the physical antenna required to broadcast and receive sub-1 GHz smart home signals Use a USB Extension Cable: Plug your Z-Wave USB stick into a short USB extension cable (approx. 3 feet) rather than directly into the laptop chassis. Laptops—especially older ones—give off electromagnetic interference that can significantly reduce your Z-Wave wireless range. Adjust Power Settings: Ensure your laptop's operating system settings are configured so the computer never goes to sleep when the lid is closed. The hub needs to stay awake 24/7 to monitor sensors.