Extending a z-wave network

I am currently running Home Assistant with a Zooz ZST39 controller stick (fully updated HAOS on a small-form factor PC w/ the Z-Wave JS UI add-on already configured). It’s working well for the house network. However, after trying a few different things (which none really worked well and were all klutzy - I can detail if people really want), I’m really having an issue getting reliable z-wave connections in the barn. I DO have cat6 cable extending my network into the barn already. When I came across the Homeseer z-net box claiming “May be Used … for Secondary Residences or Outbuildings” I must admit I got excited that this may be exactly what I need. But when I’m looking at the documentation and a few online searches, it seems like the focus is on using this as the primary z-wave controller under Home Assistant when what I want is to extend my current z-wave mesh. (and what I really DON’T want is to have to reconfigure the 82 z-wave devices already on my network!)

Any chance the Z-NET Network Z-Wave Plus Controller is indeed the answer to my problem?

I asked Homeseer and basically got a response of " :man_shrugging: use HS4." which wasn’t very helpful…

Thoughts?
Thanks!

Most likely my solution is not what you are looking for but this is what I did.
I live in a condo and have a private garage (like in a home) at the parking level. My apartment with HA and some 65 Zwave devices is many floors above and the mesh network does not reach the garage.
As there is wifi at the parking level, I installed a few Tuya devices that were added to the Tuya App.
With the Tuya integration in HA, those Tuya devices are now part of my HA, even with some 30 floors in between.
I am sure that this is not what you are looking for, but maybe it is a last resort option.

You could use the Z-Net (or any other Z-Wave controller) as a second Z-Wave network and add the close devices to it. HA supports multiple controllers (via multiple Z-Wave integration instances).

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You’ll want to get this going via a POE switch in the location where you need the dedicated z-wave network to connect devices to that can’t reach directly to your main one and you can’t extend it via devices that act as routers for the mesh network.

This same process applies to zigbee setups via the POE co-ordinators available for it.

You just rename the main network as your home one and the second as the barn network so you know what one is for what location.

Thanks for the responses! So not as plug-n-play as I had hoped but possible.

I’ve been reading about second controllers and in theory that sounds nice, but it seems like that causes more problems. It also seems that most of the posts describing running multiple z-wave integration instances don’t work under HAOS without running a second docker system somewhere. I’m still reading various posts about this now.

I am curious - why is the TubesZB a better solution then the z-net?

Also, another curiosity, I know there are lots of repeater devices for z-wave mesh’s - but are there any that have external antenna’s? (the thought being that if I could get one antenna outside the barn and one inside the barn then this would work as I can get signal out there, just not through the metal siding)

The upcoming ZWave long range is supposed to reach up to 1 mile. The problem of course is that ZWave communicates at the lowest common version. So in theory it would only work if the controller is LR, the barn Zwave devices are LR and the routing is directly between them, not routing through lower level ZWave devices in the mesh.

I do have LR working on my Zooz and I tinkered with it for one sensor that’s pretty far away in the house. Seems to be working just fine.

The problem isn’t distance because the barn isn’t far away; it’s that the metal & tin barn is essentially a Faraday cage. One of the janky solutions I’ve tried was shoving a Zooz ZEN04 smart plug (which acts as a repeater) up into the barn window. It connects to the house, but that solution isn’t practical for a number of reasons (can’t easily give up that outlet; had to connect the ZEN04 to an extension cord to get it up there; kinda pointless to have it up there; doesn’t look very good either; ect).

You can avoid this by running Z-Wave JS UI on the Z-Net itself. There are one or more existing posts detailing the configuration. You can do the same configuration with any server and a USB controller too, the Z-NET is just a dedicated (albeit potentially more expensive) option.

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