What is the Connect ZWA-2?
The Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2 is a Z-Wave adapter made by Nabu Casa, the company behind Home Assistant. It came out in August 2025 at a suggested price of $69 or €59, and it is the Z-Wave counterpart to the Connect ZBT-1 for Zigbee and Thread.
It uses a Silicon Labs 800-series Z-Wave chip and runs a classic Z-Wave mesh and a Z-Wave Long Range network at the same time. It is not a stick: the antenna is about 33 cm tall and sits on a base, connected to your Home Assistant machine with the included 1.5 m USB-C cable. The cable keeps the radio away from the computer, whose USB ports cause interference.
There is one model for the whole world. The ZWA-2 ships set to the European frequency, and Home Assistant switches it to your region based on the location in your settings.
Which devices work with it?
Any Z-Wave device sold for your region. Z-Wave is backwards compatible, so 500- and 700-series devices join an 800-series controller, and Nabu Casa says it supports S2 security, SmartStart and Z-Wave Plus V2. The device has to match your region, though: a US lock won't join a controller set to Europe.
We track 4,547 Z-Wave devices. About 1,700 of them have a device file in Z-Wave JS, the software Home Assistant uses to run the ZWA-2. Z-Wave JS reads what any device supports when it joins; the file adds the device's settings and fixes for known quirks. The rest come from the Z-Wave Alliance's list of certified products.
Z-Wave devices with a product page on this site, by category:
| Category | Devices |
|---|---|
| Smart lights and dimmers | about 1,000 |
| Sensors | about 530 |
| Door locks | about 240 |
| Thermostats | about 110 |
| Blinds and covers | about 80 |
| Smart plugs | 45 |
| Remotes and buttons | 45 |
| Alarms and sirens | 42 |
The full list, including devices without a product photo, is on Z-Wave compatible devices.
What Long Range adds
Z-Wave Long Range devices talk straight to the adapter instead of hopping through other devices. Nabu Casa measured 1.5 km in line of sight with the ZWA-2, in rain and from inside a car. That matters for a gate, a garage or an outbuilding that a normal mesh can't reach.
Long Range is only defined for North America and Europe, and it needs Long Range devices. Few devices support it so far; most Z-Wave devices you can buy today join the ordinary mesh, which the ZWA-2 runs alongside.
Setting it up in Home Assistant
- Stand the ZWA-2 upright, away from metal and other radios. It has an accelerometer and blinks its light if it is lying on its side.
- Plug it into the Home Assistant machine. Home Assistant usually recognises it and offers to set up Z-Wave.
- Choose the recommended installation, which installs the Z-Wave JS app. On a first Z-Wave network, leave the security key fields empty and Home Assistant generates the keys. If you already run Z-Wave on another adapter, the wizard can move that network over.
- Add devices. With SmartStart, you scan the QR code on the device and it joins when it gets power. For Long Range devices the wizard asks which network to use.
Firmware updates for the ZWA-2 come through Home Assistant, which can also update the firmware of Z-Wave devices over the air.
Other software
The ZWA-2 is built for Home Assistant with Z-Wave JS. It also works with Z-Wave JS UI and other Z-Wave software, but then you set the frequency and handle backups yourself, and you lose the Home Assistant features such as the migration wizard. If Home Assistant runs in another room, you can plug the ZWA-2 into a second machine running Z-Wave JS and connect that to Home Assistant over the network; Nabu Casa recommends a direct USB connection as the more reliable option.
There is also an experimental portable mode: you flash ESPHome-based firmware onto the ZWA-2 and it connects to Home Assistant over Wi-Fi, so it can stand in the middle of the house. It needs Home Assistant 2025.10.2 or newer, and the instructions tell you to back up the Z-Wave network first and rebuild routes after moving it.
Where to buy
The ZWA-2 isn't sold on Amazon. Nabu Casa sells it through electronics retailers such as The Pi Hut and Pimoroni in Europe and Ameridroid in the US; the current list is on the official ZWA-2 page. Our listing for the adapter itself is Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2.