Elevator in my house block signal, what should I do?

Hardware
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1

Our house is a building with elevator, currently I have my home assistant running in Proxmox VM on a nuc 10.
I have Hue bridge, Lutron Caseta bridge and Conbee II to control devices and signal from 2F~5F is perfect with no delay, the problem is 1st floor.

I know zigbee will create a mesh network, but there are no stair connect between 1st floor and 2nd, just elevator. It means there are no space like stair to set a node to reach devices in 1st floor. I have tried to move all of my hubs to 2nd floor but still no luck.

Currently I use 1 wifi bulb and motion sensor of Wiz ( there is a Unifi LR in 1F), the bulb is okay but the sensor is awful and can not configured in home assistant.

Now I want to add 3 bulbs and few motion sensors to 1F, with some research I come out with some methods, please help me to choose the best one:

  1. get another zigbee / zwave hub, plus a switch for more Rj45 ports. (now only one port in 1F)
  2. get a zigbbee / zwave stick, but have to purchase a Raspberry pi to configure with stick and also a switch for RJ45.
  3. Find better wifi motion sensor.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

2

Put devices in shaft to pass mesh

3

Yeah, sounds good, a motion/temperature sensor in elevator shaft, you can use it for automation’s too - ventilate shaft, when to warm, announce elevator moving… :slight_smile:

4

What are your floors made of?

Lead? :grinning:

I would have thought even if it was a concrete floor a repeater or two placed on the 1st floor would make it through to the 2nd.

1 Like
5

Sometimes there is a layer of waved steel plates as a layer, where concrete is then put on. Such floor can block signals very well…

6

Ah. Yeah that would do it.

7

Thanks for you guys reply!

Actually I don’t really know what the floors and walls are made for, but it must be something really thick that I have to put one AP in each room (not even each floor!).

And I do try put hubs in 1F to test signal strength in 2F and all the devices lose connection, in fact the moment I close door of elevator they disconnect immediately.

Speaking of set a repeater or node in shaft, sadly it would be a very difficult work for me (I don’t even take a look inside of it for 15 years). But what if there is no other way maybe I could try to call the elevator company.

Before things got complicated, I still want to try something much more simple like adding a new hub or stick, can you offer me some choices?

8

I understand this might not be your preferred approach over a ZigBee or z-wave mesh, but shelly has wi-fi motion sensors: Shelly Motion

9

For Zigbee, you could use a CC2530 with an ESP, and use Zigbee2MQTT on your Home Assistant (having a second zigbee network next to your conbee)

Or a Sonoff ZbBridge with ZHA (flashed with Tasmota) as second Zigbee network.