Software Design Specification 
Z-Wave Protocol Overview 
 
Document No.: 
SDS10243 
Version: 
8 
  
Description: 
This document is a high-level description of the Z Wave Protocol. 
Written By: 
JFR;PSH;ABR;JBU 
Date: 
2008-12-04 
Reviewed By: 
CHL;JKA 
Partners Only 
Restrictions: 
 
Approved by: 
Date 
2008-12-04 
 
CET 
13:49:23 
Initials  Name 
JFR 
Jørgen Franck 
Justification 
 on behalf of NTJ 
 
This document is the property of Zensys A/S. The data contained herein, in whole or in 
part, may not be duplicated, used or disclosed outside the recipient for any purpose. This 
restriction does not limit the recipient's right to use information contained in the data if it is 
obtained from another source without restriction. 
 
CONFIDENTIAL 
 
SDS10243-8 
Z-Wave Protocol Overview 
2008-12-04 
Doc. Rev  Date 
By 
20050128 
JFR 
Pages 
affected 
- 
1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
JFR 
20060105  MVO  All 
3.4 
20070228 
All 
JFR  All 
ABR  3.5 
JFR 
JFR  All 
ABR  5.1.4.1 & 6.4 
20070509 
20080626 
20081124 
20081126 
20081202 
3.4.2 & 3.4.4 
REVISION RECORD 
Brief description of changes 
Removed paragraph about assignment of home and node ID 
Removed paragraph about controller replication 
New 1st page/header/footer contents. New Doc No 
Frequently listening routing slaves and Zensor Net routing slaves added 
Table of figures added 
Confidential in footer removed 
Random home ID after reset in controllers and slaves added 
ZDK 5.0x supports FLiRS and Zensor Net only. 
Minor typos corrected 
Explorer frame type and explorer route resolution added 
Zensys A/S 
 
Revision Record and Tables of Contents 
Page ii of iv
CONFIDENTIAL 
SDS10243-8 
Z-Wave Protocol Overview 
2008-12-04 
Table of Contents 
3.3.1 
3.3.2 
3.3.2.1 
3.3.2.2 
3.3.3 
3.3.4 
3.4.1 
3.4.2 
3.4.3 
3.4.4 
1  ABBREVIATIONS.................................................................................................................................1 
2 
INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................................2 
2.1  Purpose ..............................................................................................................................................2 
2.2  Scope .................................................................................................................................................2 
2.3  Audience and Prerequisites ...............................................................................................................2 
3  Z-WAVE PROTOCOL...........................................................................................................................3 
3.1  Overview.............................................................................................................................................3 
3.2  Controller and Slave nodes................................................................................................................3 
3.3  Controllers ..........................................................................................................................................4 
Portable Controller......................................................................................................................4 
Static Controller ..........................................................................................................................4 
Static Update Controller ......................................................................................................5 
SUC ID Server.....................................................................................................................5 
Installer Controller ......................................................................................................................5 
Bridge Controller.........................................................................................................................5 
3.4  Slaves.................................................................................................................................................5 
Slave...........................................................................................................................................5 
Routing Slave .............................................................................................................................6 
Enhanced Slave .........................................................................................................................6 
Zensor Net Routing Slave ..........................................................................................................6 
3.5  Home ID and Node ID ........................................................................................................................6 
4  MAC LAYER .........................................................................................................................................8 
4.1  Collision avoidance ............................................................................................................................8 
5  TRANSFER LAYER............................................................................................................................10 
5.1  Frame Layout ...................................................................................................................................10 
Singlecast Frame Type.............................................................................................................11 
5.1.1 
Transfer Acknowledge Frame Type .........................................................................................11 
5.1.2 
5.1.3  Multicast Frame Type ...............................................................................................................11 
5.1.4 
Broadcast Frame Type.............................................................................................................12 
Explorer Frame Type.........................................................................................................12 
6  ROUTING LAYER...............................................................................................................................14 
6.1  Frame Layout ...................................................................................................................................14 
Routed Singlecast Frame Type................................................................................................14 
Routed Acknowledge Frame Type ...........................................................................................14 
6.2  Routing Table ...................................................................................................................................15 
6.3  Route to Node ..................................................................................................................................15 
6.4  Explorer Route Resolution ...............................................................................................................15 
Last Working Route ..................................................................................................................16 
The Explorer Search process...................................................................................................16 
7  APPLICATION LAYER.......................................................................................................................17 
7.1  Frame Layout ...................................................................................................................................17 
Application Layer Frame Format ..............................................................................................17 
7.2  Node information ..............................................................................................................................18 
Node Information Frame Flow..................................................................................................18 
8  REFERENCES....................................................................................................................................19 
 
7.1.1 
7.2.1 
5.1.4.1 
6.1.1 
6.1.2 
6.4.1 
6.4.2 
Zensys A/S 
 
Revision Record and Tables of Contents 
Page iii of iv
CONFIDENTIAL 
SDS10243-8 
Z-Wave Protocol Overview 
List of Figures 
2008-12-04 
Figure 1  Z-Wave Protocol Layers............................................................................................................... 3 
Figure 2  Z-Wave network comprising of controllers and slaves................................................................. 4 
Figure 3  Z-Wave data stream..................................................................................................................... 8 
Figure 4  Manchester coding ....................................................................................................................... 8 
Figure 5  Collision avoidance ...................................................................................................................... 8 
Figure 6  Z-Wave basic frame format........................................................................................................ 10 
Figure 7  Singlecast transmission.............................................................................................................. 11 
Figure 8  Multicast transmission................................................................................................................ 11 
Figure 9  Broadcast transmission.............................................................................................................. 12 
Figure 10  Routed singlecast transmission ............................................................................................... 14 
Figure 11  Routed singlecast transmission ............................................................................................... 14 
Figure 12  Network topology and routing table.......................................................................................... 15 
Figure 13  Z-Wave application frame format ............................................................................................. 17 
Figure 14  Z-Wave command class range ................................................................................................ 17 
Figure 15  Get node info frame flow .......................................................................................................... 18 
 
Zensys A/S 
 
Revision Record and Tables of Contents 
Page iv of iv
CONFIDENTIAL 
SDS10243-8 
Z-Wave Protocol Overview 
2008-12-04 
1  ABBREVIATIONS 
Abbreviation 
EOF 
FLiRS 
MAC 
PIR 
RF 
SIS 
SOF 
SUC 
TTL 
ZDK 
 
Explanation 
End Of Frame 
Frequently Listening Routing Slave  
Media Access Control 
Passive Infra Red movement sensor 
Radio Frequency 
SUC ID Server 
Start Of Frame 
Static Update Controller 
Time-To-Live 
Z-Wave Developer’s Kit 
Zensys A/S 
 
Abbreviations 
CONFIDENTIAL 
Page 1 of 19
SDS10243-8 
Z-Wave Protocol Overview 
2008-12-04 
2 
INTRODUCTION 
2.1  Purpose 
The purpose of this document is to describe the Z-WaveTM Radio Frequency Protocol that provides 
reliable and robust wireless communication between the nodes in a Z-Wave mesh network. 
2.2  Scope 
The scope of this document is to give an overview of the following protocol layers: 
•  The MAC layer 
•  The Transfer Layer 
•  The Routing Layer 
•  The Frame Layer 
2.3  Audience and Prerequisites 
The audience of this document is Z-Wave partners and Zensys A/S. 
Zensys A/S 
 
Introduction 
CONFIDENTIAL 
Page 2 of 19
SDS10243-8 
Z-Wave Protocol Overview 
2008-12-04 
3  Z-WAVE PROTOCOL 
3.1  Overview 
The Z-Wave protocol is a low bandwidth half-duplex protocol designed for reliable and robust wireless 
communication in a low cost control mesh network. The protocols main purpose is to communicate short 
control messages in a reliable manner from a control unit to one or more nodes in the network. 
The protocol is not designed to transfer large amounts of data or to transfer any kind of streaming or 
timing critical data. 
The protocol consist of 4 layers, the MAC Layer that controls the RF media, the Transfer Layer that 
handles frame integrity checks, acknowledgements, and retransmissions, the Routing Layer that controls 
the routing of frames in the network and application interface; and finally the Application Layer controls 
the payload in the transmitted and received frames. 
Application Layer 
Routing Layer 
Transfer Layer 
MAC Layer 
RF Media 
For a description of the four layers, refer to chapters 4 to 7. 
Figure 1  Z-Wave Protocol Layers 
3.2  Controller and Slave nodes 
The Z-Wave protocol has two basic kinds of devices; controlling devices and slave nodes. Controlling 
devices are the nodes in a network that initiate control commands and sends out the commands to other 
nodes, and slave nodes are the nodes that reply on and execute the commands. Slave nodes can also 
forward commands to other nodes, which make it possible for the controller to communicate with nodes 
out of the direct radio wave reach. 
Zensys A/S 
 
Z-Wave protocol 
CONFIDENTIAL 
Page 3 of 19
SDS10243-8 
Z-Wave Protocol Overview 
2008-12-04 
1
2
Slaves
3
Battery powered
routing slave
4
 
Portable
Controller
Static controller
Figure 2  Z-Wave network comprising of controllers and slaves 
3.3  Controllers 
A controller is a Z-Wave device that has a full routing table and is therefore able to communicate with all 
nodes in the Z-Wave network. The functionality available in a controller depends on when it entered the 
Z-Wave network. In case the controller is used to create a new Z-Wave network it automatically become 
the primary controller. The primary controller is the “master” controller in the Z-Wave network and there 
can only be one in each network. Only primary controllers have the capability to include/exclude nodes in 
the network and therefore always have the latest network topology. 
Controllers added to the network using the primary controller are called secondary controllers and don’t 
have the capability to include/exclude nodes in the network.  
3.3.1 
Portable Controller 
A portable controller is a controller, which is designed to change position in the Z-Wave network. The 
portable controller uses a number of mechanisms to estimate the current location and hereby calculating 
the fastest route through the network. A portable controller is typically battery powered because it is 
mainly used in portable applications. It is difficult to communicate with a portable controller because it is 
typically powered down when not in active use to prolong battery lifetime.  
An example of a portable controller could be a remote control. 
3.3.2 
Static Controller 
A static controller is a fixed controller that must not change position in the network and has to be 
powered up all the time (always listening). This controller has the advantage that Routing slaves can 
report unsolicited status messages to it, and it also has the advantage of always knowing where it is 
located in the network. A static controller will typically be a secondary controller in a Z-Wave network. 
An example of a static controller could be an Internet gateway that monitors a Z-Wave system. 
Zensys A/S 
 
Z-Wave protocol 
CONFIDENTIAL 
Page 4 of 19