Zooz Z-Box Review

[OhioYJ]

I've been messing with Smart home Devices for many years. Recently I decided to migrate my entire home over from SmartThings to the Zooz Zbox. Since there is very little information out there about this hub, I figured I'd post up my thoughts. First I'll mostly compare this to Smart Things, as that's what this replaced. Smart Things originally replaced a Iris hub, though I also have some experience with Home Assitant as well.

 

I started buying Zooz devices, and have great luck with them, which is what made me originally look at the ZBox. Primarily I was interested in it's offline functionality. With SmartThings, if I lost internet everything stopped functioning. With the ZBox, I've already had an issue where I lost internet, and it was no issue at all for the Zbox. All my light schedules, etc still functioned and operated as expected.

 

Going into this one, consider this more of a "power user" device. There is a bit of a learning curve. Everything has worked fine for me, but I had to do some searching and reading to get there. Also reaching out to Zooz at times, helped. Great people that do respond very quickly. For example the QR code for setup of the ZBox doesn't take you to a setup guide, it takes you to a wall of links about the ZBox (a gigantic FAQ). While it's helpful information there, it's overwhelming if you just wanted to set it up. Especially since there are other QR codes on the box for things.

 

At this point most of my devices are Zooz, so I wasn't too worried about the switch over. However the first things I tried were the non-Zooz devices. The first one with a Z-wave siren (an old Utilitech unit). It actually connected without any problem, and worked. Here's the double edged sword of the ZBox though. As mentioned this is kind of a "power-user" device. SmartThings would detect the siren above, and use it as a siren. The ZBox, you're going to have to tell it what to do with this "siren". Even if you program if to go off with the alarm, you might want to program it to turn off after some time. Otherwise it will just stay on. This leads into the increased complexity of devices. The ZBox shows you everything. Smarthings for example may just show you a "Plug" and under that plug it might show you the voltage and current. However in the ZBox adding that same plug, you'll end up with three separate devices (see below). In the menus you can hide the extra devices if you don't really need them, however "hiding" them makes them cease to function in the app at all? To me this one seems like a misstep, I may not want a temperature sensor to show up in the device list, but I may still want that room to report temperatures.

 

 

Creating scenes, is laid out very well. The basic mode is done using "blocks". Honestly I quickly got to where I prefer this over SmartThings setup for creating scenes. It does allow you to use LUA code easily as well. You can also start with a block scene and convert it to LUA code if you want.

 

 

 

 

Remote Access

You can run the ZBox entirely locally. However if you want, you can use their app to access the system remotely as well. There is currently no charge for this. I mention this, because their FAQ states there are no current plans to charge for access to this. Which I guess is just fine print to cover themselves in case this ever needs to change. Fair.

This works well enough to be usable to access everything you would need. It is a bit slow in my experience. In general, I'm averaging about 20 seconds from the time I click the app to the time I can actually use it. In comparison SmartThings is about 3 seconds (the SmartThings app opens right away, the rest of the time is waiting for home monitor to report).

You can also access the Hub from the web. Accessing it remotely from the web, gives you access to almost everything you have locally. Unlike the app (the app you can do most common things)

I'll point out a couple limitation / annoyance. When using the app, if your network is designed like mine (has VLANs) be prepared to likely be annoyed. Unless you are on the same network as the hub it's going to complain, and not let you do things. Maybe this one is done in the name of security. So I can't complain too much.

 

Zbox App

While you can use the ZBox entirely locally, there is an app to use it remotely (you can also use the website remotely). As mentioned I'm waiting about 20 seconds before the app will let me do anything. Once in the app you will be able to do most things that you would expect. You can set custom icons (through the web interface) and these will carry over to the mobile app. I would recommend doing this, otherwise, it's very tough to figure find things in the app if you have lots of smart devices in your eco system.

 

 

I also found while you can rearrange tiles on for your favorites on the main screen (which again can be time consuming if you have many devices), it's almost a lost cause. If you add a device, or change anything in the app, it will rearrange them in almost a seemingly random order again. The apps settings are based on rows, but best I can tell it seems to sort on columns.

 

Perhaps it's just us but I know we use the door locks for example frequently. There is no way to get this on the main screen (it's on the main screen but on the top and you have scroll all the way to right, then open a menu, then unlock the door you want). *Edit* Correction, it was pointed out to me, you can edit this menu, and rearrange it however you want.

 

Conclusion

So while it seems like I have some gripes about it, I've more just tried to point out the things I came across while setting this up. I think if anything, the biggest take away is I've stuck with the ZBox, and didn't reinstall my SmartThings hub, or HomeAssistant.

 

I'll say a word of warning for those coming from say SmartThings. With SmartThings we could hit a button and sometimes things just wouldn't happen. It might ignore the command to open the garage door for example. The ZBox doesn't do this, if you hit the button its almost certainly going to do that action. Unfortunately if it doesn't happen immediately it's a when. So if you think it won't happen, and hit the open garage door button 6 more times, your garage door may open and close 6 times whenever the hub catches up.

TLDR

 

Pros:
- It's been very reliable, my scenes have always just worked since my switch over.
- Works offline. Even without internet, everything works. In fact I have put several remote switches throughout the house, so we can trigger things even if the internet is down.
- Zooz support really is great.

 

Cons:
- If an alarm is triggered, it doesn't tell you why. (This seems like a huge oversight? Tell me which sensor triggered the alarm!)
- The huge delay in the mobile app. I can pull up my cameras quicker than I can get into the mobile app. Not to mention I have no idea why the alarm is going off anyways.
- I have the LAN add-on, the HUB doesn't handle the switch over properly. If it loses Wifi it just says it's offline. I connect to it VIA the LAN, but it won't look for internet there?
- The documentation, while I'm sure seems overwhelming sometimes, also seems incomplete at times. Want to add a user, go to the documentation. Whats the difference between a advance user and a normal user? (who knows?)
- The app needs a bit more customization. For example, not being able to move or add door locks is a headache. *Edit* Correction, it was pointed out to me, you can edit this menu, and rearrange it however you want.

[OhioYJ]

22 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

Cons:
- If an alarm is triggered, it doesn't tell you why. (This seems like a huge oversight? Tell me which sensor triggered the alarm!)
- Not to mention I have no idea why the alarm is going off anyways.

It occurred to me last night while thinking about this, I believe this one is my fault. While I still think this is basic functionality that should be included in the "alarm" function, it's basically because I didn't "program" it to do these things. So after creating many new scenes later, the hub does now alert us to which item triggered the alarm.

 

The Mrs. apparently also thinks I'm the nerdy one for making it say "Danger, Will Robinson" when the alarm is triggered (it's more detailed than that, but that blurb is in there.).

[OhioYJ]

On 5/3/2025 at 8:50 AM, OhioYJ said:

 There is no way to get this on the main screen (it's on the main screen but on the top and you have scroll all the way to right, then open a menu, then unlock the door you want).

I want to correct this, as it has been pointed out to me that this section of the app is customizable. These tiles can be rearranged however you want. It's in a different spot, and I just missed it. So now my door locks are right next to the arm button. This has been corrected above.

 

 

On 5/3/2025 at 8:50 AM, OhioYJ said:

You can set custom icons (through the web interface) and these will carry over to the mobile app. I would recommend doing this, otherwise, it's very tough to figure find things in the app if you have lots of smart devices in your eco system.

I have started working on setting custom icons. I didn't really do anything fancy. All I did was take pictures of the items on / off or open / closed, and use those for my icons. Note it says icons, but it wants 128x128 PNGs. I think it makes things a little easier to find. However it's nice they let you use whatever you want.

 

 

 

[OhioYJ]

Zooz has been good about releasing advanced drivers even on Smart things to unlocked more features on their devices. However, on this ZBox, it's taken a bit further.

 

You can update your device's firmware, (Firmware Update Files), at your own risk obviously (this was not possible on SmartThings). 

 

More recently they have also released new templates, JSON Templates for their devices. These add extra parameters to the devices, for extra functionality. Primarily to give you more control and customization over things.