January 27, 2026

SLZB-Ultima: A Quad-Radio Smart Home Radio Controller Supporting Various Protocols

While not based on SDR technology, we think that some readers may be interested in this product.

We'd like to thank Serhii, who writes on behalf of SMLIGHT in Ukraine. SMLIGHT recently released its "SLZB-Ultima" device, a compact radio platform supporting multiple wireless technologies commonly used in smart homes.

These technologies include Zigbee, Thread, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. The device also optionally supports Z-Wave, LTE, Power-over-Ethernet, UPS backup, infrared control, and USB-over-Ethernet. The cloud-independent software supports WireGuard VPN, Dynamic DNS, Internal Zigbee hub mode, local IF-THEN automations running directly on the device, and one-click OTA updates.

The full press release is available here in this PDF.

The device is priced affordably at only US$40 on Aliexpress.

January 19, 2016

Hacking the Z-Wave Protocol with a HackRF

Z-wave is a wireless protocol that is used often in applications like smart home and industrial automation. It essentially allows various wireless nodes to connect and talk to one another within your house, using 900 MHz wireless technology. Some common examples of Z-wave node products might be wireless controlled lights, door locks, thermostats and other security devices like motion detectors.

Recently at Shmoocon 2016 (a yearly hacking and security themed conference), presenters Joseph Hall and Ben Ramsey showed how they were able to use a HackRF software defined radio and some GNU Radio based software to not only sniff Z-wave packets, but to also control Z-wave devices. What’s also interesting is that they found that encryption on z-wave devices was rarely enabled, except for five out of nine door locks that they tested where it was enabled by default.

See the full story at Hackaday and have a look at their code on GitHub.

Presenters Joseph and Ben holding a HackRF and z-wave controlled light.