homeassistant

Cheaper, maybe. I wouldn't say most ZWave devices are exactly cheap. OTOH, I've never had a device not pair eventually, even if I have had a few times where I had to try the pair a couple of times. My biggest issue with ZWave has been when I replaced the controller, and had to remove devices from a controller that no longer existed and add them to the new controller. Pairing is usually straightforward, but many ZWave devices assume you still have the controller and expect you to start the removal on that end. And that part's already horribly documented, if at all, and then the reset is "click 5 times fast, then hold for 15 seconds". Hold on the 5th click? Or press 5 times and then press again and hold? Anyway, Thank goodness it rarely comes up.

As for battery life, I don't know. All of my button-cell battery-powered ZWave sensors have battery lives of 1-2 years. I have 4 or 5 motion sensors in the house and a couple of tilt sensors on the garage doors; the only one I have an issue with is a water sensor, which either burns through batteries at an alarming rate, or has a crappy battery level sensor. I have an 2xAA siren in which the batteries last about a year; they lasted a year in 2023-2024, and I replaced them at 20% because I was going around replacing batteries. That doesn't seem too bad, to me.