And how is your zigbee2mqtt pen range? For what I read, it has a very limited range for any useful use without having to spread zigbee power plugs across the whole house.
I’m a bit confused by this. I’m not having issues, but have slowly been adding zwave plus devices to my zwave network. I probably have about 10-15 powered (not battery) of each. Are you saying that my mesh is at best the range of the non plus devices? I’d just assumed (not researched since everything is working), that the newer plus devices would increase the range,
zwave <—> zwave plus <—> zwave
would give me a longer range than
zwave <—> zwave <—> zwave plus
Is that not the case?
I think the fact that you are running POWERED z-wave devices lets you avoid the challenge that others run into. Battery powered devices are the bain of a mesh, since they can only really participate at the edge of the mesh.
When you have a mixture of Zwave and Zwave Plus devices on your network, all devices work as though they are just Zwave. You only get the advantages that Zwave Plus offers if ALL your devices are Zwave Plus devices.
The vast majority of the devices I have are Plus, but my network works very well so I won’t necessarily replace the few older devices I have unless they die. My network extends to two out buildings about 75 feet from the hub and I have not had any issues in the last couple of years. I would not add anything not Plus or beyond these days unless someone was giving it away.
Interesting, and thanks for the info. I have about 15 or so powered and a few more battery devices that are not plus. But, like you i’m not having any issues at all with my mesh. I did once try to add a zwave motion and later open/close sensor to my mailbox about 50-75 feet from the house and failed, maybe plus mesh would have worked better? But I’m not replacing everything to find out,haha. One thing I did notice while looking through my devices is my controller, a HUSBZB-1. Documentation says its plus, but in the zwave parameters for the device in HA it says is_plus: false. Maybe that’s because of the mixed zwave mesh. Anyway, no worries on my end, and thanks again for the knowledge.
The controller may be Plus but until all your devices are Plus it will operate as a non plus device.
It took a little planning to get my outbuildings to reliably connect. I have an added issue in that the siding on our house is steel making the house a veritable “Faraday Cage” (Inside the house we have almost no cell reception). I needed to add an outside device very close to a wired indoor device. Once I had one good outside connection the rest of the outside became much easier and very reliable. An outdoor switch or the on of the least expensive options is a Go Control Zwave bulb (Plus) can be a simple way to extend the mesh to the outdoors.
1 Like
Interesting to note. My network is almost exclusively Z-wave plus. I have a mixture of light switches, dry contact switches, power outlets and a ton of door sensors. I have no problems with connectivity for any device, including those in the garage behind thick concrete (contact sensor and door sensor) and an outlet which is in the shed all the way at the back of my yard.
I have had zero problems with Z-wave since I got started about a year ago.
Hi Chris, Did you manage to solve your problem?
I have some coolcam door sensors that comunicate with my Pi with an aeon gen 5 z stick, BUT the one far away of pi cannot send signal. I bought the aeotec range extender but cannot put them work together,
Thanks for the support
Bruno
@b.maia81 did you manage to fix this?
I’ve just but a z-wave plus socket to act primarily as a repeater and I’m having the same problems:
I’ve tried opening and closing all my doors after pressing “heal network” to wake up all my battery powered sensors but I cannot get the repeater to see them. Graphing the network just shows the repeater connected to the controller, and all the sensors as not connected.
Note that ‘heal network’ does not wake any battery powered devices! You need to do this manually. In mostcases you need to press a button or take of a cover. It depends on a device. Network healing means only sending a command from the controler to all the devices to tell what are their neighbours. Then the controller knows how should the communication look like. It’s stated even in HA zwave docs.
Writing this as I also have a problem with sensors range and tried all the possible trouble shooting. I am able to get the sensors report their neighbours but only if I put them really close to some mains-powered devices.
But I still have an impression it doesn’t work well. I also own a NeoCC plug and despite the sensors are in the room next to it - it doesn’t seem like it routes their signals. Maybe it’s true that NeoCC stuff don’t really extend the mesh netowork.
I have a problem where I couldn’t add a GE switch so I rigged up a plug to a cord to it and put it right next to the hub to add. Later, while every thing was not powered, I put the switch to its final place.
Now it says the switch is presumed dead even though there is a battery operated zwave lock right next to it working fine.
I think the hub and the switch are looking for each other and I don’t know how to tell it to use an in between switch as a mesh bridge
I think this is what Heal Network is for, and then wait 24 hours to see if that has helped.
I did this as well as a lot of other things.
The next thing i’ll try is bringing the raspberry/hassio close to the switch with an extension cord and a long Ethernet cord. I’ll run a heal and hopefully it will find the switch as well as the hub. Then heal again when the hassio is back where it belongs.
It sounds crazy but that’s where I’m at. I have more than $300 invested in this z-wave crap but I’m ready to throw it all in the garbage.
There is a problem with your system or setup. Z-wave runs in the 900MHz range, which has better penetration than 2.4GHz WiFi. I only have 3 line powered devices and have no trouble with connection and range. In fact, all of the powered devices are direct connected to the hub (Homeseer Smartstick), no hops at all, and there are probably 4 walls between them and the hub. The farthest distance is about 70 feet in my setup. Also, insulation (fiberglass type) doesn’t matter as much as metal (including pipes), brick and wood. There is some attenuation with each wall.
I have no problems with my mesh. OP did.
I have no experience with the z-wave stick you are using, but I’m happy with the Homeseer Smarstick in a Pi 3. No real issues. I do bind new devices in the same room with the Pi/Smartstick, but once they are mounted (up to 80 feet away and 3-4 walls) I don’t have any connection issues. Do you have your USB stick surrounded by other USB drives or do you have an extension from the Pi?
Hello Petro, I was referring to this:
I didn’t know if your setup was exhibiting this or you were just stating the advertised performance. Glad yours is working well.
Just reporting advertise
So I ended up buying a 10 foot USB extension cord to change the position of the hub and everything works now.
The switch that wasn’t working is now neighbors directly with the hub and not to the closer switch that I intended as a repeater. The intended repeater switch is in an electric box with the back facing the switch that wasn’t working. Maybe the metal box blocks the Z-wave signal. However, the (previously) non working switch is 3 feet away from a door lock which is neighbors with both.
I’m perplexed but at least things are working.
It depends sometimes it can act as an antenna, clearly in your case it was dampening the signal.