Zooz ZST39 LR Review: Z-Wave Long Range That Actually Reaches the Garage

I have been on Z-Wave for about eight years. Started with a SmartThings hub, migrated to a Nortek HUSBZB-1 when I moved to Home Assistant, swapped that for an Aeotec Gen5+ when the HUSBZB started ghost-dropping commands, and finally got fed up enough to replace it with the Zooz 800 Series Z-Wave Long Range USB Stick ZST39 LR six months ago. This is the build log.

The short version: it works, the support is real, and Long Range mode finally fixed the one device that has plagued me for years (the front porch lock). The longer version has nuance, so let’s get into it.

Why I Switched Off the Aeotec Stick

My Aeotec Z-Wave Gen5+ was not broken. It was just tired. The 500-series chip it runs is 10 years old. Newer features like SmartStart QR pairing, S2 security improvements, and Long Range either work poorly on it or do not work at all.

The specific things that pushed me over:

• S2 pairing was a 50/50 coin flip. Half the time a new lock or sensor would pair securely, half the time it would fail back to S0 or refuse entirely. The fix was always the same: unplug stick, plug in, restart Z-Wave JS, try again. Sometimes 3 or 4 retries.
• The detached garage door sensor would randomly drop off the network every 3 to 4 weeks. Wake it up by pressing the button, it would heal, work for a month, drop again. Always the same device. The mesh was not strong enough to that part of the property without a repeater I did not have an outlet for.
• No path to Long Range. Aeotec sells an 800-series stick of their own now, but I was already eyeing Zooz because I had bought 4 of their ZEN switches and the firmware updates have been steady.

So I ordered the ZST39 LR for around 30 bucks. It showed up two days later in a tiny anti-static bag.

What Is Z-Wave Long Range, Actually

Z-Wave Long Range (LR) is a 2022-spec extension to the protocol that does one specific thing: it lets LR-capable end devices talk directly to the hub instead of routing through the mesh. No hops, no neighbors, no repeaters.

The numbers Silicon Labs publishes are a 4x range improvement and direct hub-to-device communication up to a mile line-of-sight. In a normal house with walls and appliances and metal HVAC ducts, the practical number is more like 400 to 500 feet — but that is still 4 to 10 times better than mesh Z-Wave hop range.

The catch: Long Range only works between an LR-capable hub and LR-capable end devices. Your existing Z-Wave Plus switches and locks do not magically become LR when you plug in an LR stick. They keep meshing normally. Long Range is a parallel network running alongside the mesh on the same chip.

That nuance matters for the buying decision: if every device in your house is already meshed and working, swapping in an LR stick does not change anything until you start replacing devices with LR models. It is a forward investment. Where it pays off immediately is the edge-of-property device that has always been a problem — for me, the garage and the front porch lock.

The Hardware

ZST39 LR on Amazon. It is a black USB-A stick about the size of a small thumb drive. No external antenna, no LEDs, no buttons. The form factor is intentionally boring because Zooz expects you to plug it into a USB extension cable and tuck it behind the rack.

What is in the box:

• The stick itself, with an S2 pairing QR code on a small sticker
• A printed quickstart card
• That is it

What you need that is not in the box:

• A USB 2.0 extension cable, 3 to 6 feet, shielded. Get one. Do not skip this. USB 3.0 ports leak 2.4 GHz noise that wrecks Z-Wave reliability when the stick is plugged directly into the host.
• A LR-capable device or two if you actually want to see what Long Range can do. Zooz makes Long Range switches and the Aeotec Range Extender 7 supports LR if you need to backfill an old mesh.

Setup in Home Assistant

This part is genuinely boring, which is what you want.

1. Shut down Home Assistant.
2. Unplug the old Aeotec stick. If you are migrating, do this before you remove the integration, because Z-Wave JS UI can do an NVM backup and restore between sticks if both are 700-series or 800-series. Aeotec Gen5 (500-series) to Zooz 800 is not a supported NVM migration — you have to factory-reset all your devices and re-pair them. Plan for the afternoon.
3. Plug the ZST39 into the USB extension cable, run the cable 3 to 6 feet away from the host, plug the extension into the host.
4. Start Home Assistant.
5. Go to Settings → Devices & Services → Z-Wave JS. The integration will detect the new serial device. If it asks for the path, pick the one with Zooz_800 in the name (under /dev/serial/by-id/). Always pick the by-id path, never /dev/ttyUSB0 — the latter changes on reboot and breaks the integration.
6. Done.

The new stick comes up empty. No nodes, no network. Now you re-pair devices one by one. The QR code sticker on each Z-Wave Plus device is the magic part: open Z-Wave JS UI, click “Add Node,” scan the QR with your phone (Home Assistant Companion app makes this easy), and the device pairs with S2 in under 10 seconds. Repeat for each device.

I had 47 Z-Wave devices to re-pair. It took a Saturday morning. Painful, but cleaner than I expected.

Range Testing

I did proper before/after testing because I am that kind of person.

Before (Aeotec Gen5+, mesh only):

• Living room (10 ft from stick): instant response, 100% reliability
• Kitchen (25 ft, one wall): instant, 100%
• Master bedroom (45 ft, two walls): instant, 99% (occasional 1-second delay)
• Basement utility room (1 floor down, 35 ft): 2-3 second delay, 95% reliability — required one repeater (a plug-in switch) at the basement door
• Detached garage (90 ft, exterior wall + open air): unreliable, 70-80% delivery, frequent drop-offs, required a repeater on the porch that itself was flaky

After (Zooz ZST39 LR, mesh + LR side by side):

• All mesh devices: identical to before (this is expected, the radio is the same chip generation as 700-series for mesh)
• One LR-capable test switch in the garage: instant response, 100% reliability across 200 commands, no repeater needed
• One LR-capable test sensor in the basement: instant response, 100%

The mesh did not get better. Long Range made the edge cases vanish. That is the entire story.

The Firmware Update Gotcha

Zooz ships the stick on whatever firmware was current at the factory. As of mid-2026, you want to be on firmware 1.40 or newer for the best Z-Wave JS compatibility and the latest LR improvements. Mine arrived on 1.30.

Updating is a two-step process and the documentation is scattered:

1. Put the stick in bootloader mode using the Z-Wave JS UI “Update Firmware” function (Z-Wave JS handles the OTW update natively now, which is new and was not the case a year ago — the old guides telling you to use Simplicity Studio or PC Controller are out of date).
2. Flash the latest .gbl from the Zooz firmware page.

If Z-Wave JS UI does not work for you, the fallback is the Silicon Labs Simplicity Commander tool, which is Windows-only or runs in a Linux Docker container. I never had to touch this; Z-Wave JS got it done in 90 seconds.

What Zooz Got Right

• Support actually responds. I emailed about a confusing log message during the firmware update. Got a real, technical reply within 18 hours from someone who knew what they were talking about. This is genuinely rare.
• The stick is plug-and-forget. Six months in, zero drop-offs, zero ghost commands, zero “did this actually send?” anxiety.
• Long Range works as advertised. Not 4x — closer to 6x in my house — but the direction is right.
• Price is fair. Around $30, which is on par with the Aeotec stick and cheaper than the HomeSeer SmartStick G3.

What Zooz Got Wrong (or could improve)

• The LR rollout in third-party devices is slow. Six months in, the catalog of LR end devices is still thin. Zooz makes the most. Aeotec and Inovelli are getting there. Most of the big Z-Wave names (Leviton, GE, Honeywell) are barely engaged.
• No external antenna option. For an enterprise-grade stick at $30 I would not expect one, but if you live in a brick or stucco house, an SMA antenna option would be nice.
• The user manual is a PDF buried on the support site. Not the end of the world but the first-time-user experience would be smoother with a single getting-started URL.

Migrating From SmartThings, Hubitat, or Vera

If you are coming from a non-Home Assistant hub and considering the ZST39 LR as part of a move to HA, three things to know:

1. No NVM migration is possible. SmartThings, Hubitat, and Vera all use proprietary Z-Wave database formats. You will re-pair every device. This is a one-time tax.
2. Factory-reset devices before re-pairing, or they will refuse to join the new network. The reset procedure is in each device’s manual; it is usually a long press or a specific tap sequence.
3. Re-pair locks last. They are the most finicky and benefit from being added to a stable network rather than a brand new one. I added all my switches and sensors first, let the network sit overnight, then added locks the next day.

The Bottom Line

The Zooz ZST39 LR is the Z-Wave stick I should have bought a year earlier. It is not flashy, the LR ecosystem is still small, and you will spend a Saturday re-pairing devices if you are migrating. But the result is a stable Z-Wave network in Home Assistant, real responsive support behind the product, and a clear upgrade path as more LR devices come to market.

If your current Z-Wave setup is working perfectly, you do not need to switch. If you are running an aging 500-series stick (Aeotec Gen5, HUSBZB-1, older Vera) or fighting flaky edge-of-property devices, replace it now. The ZST39 LR is the easiest 30 dollars I have spent on my smart home in years.

If you only have Zigbee today and zero Z-Wave, this stick is not for you — stay on Zigbee or look at the Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2 for Thread/Matter expansion instead.