So I currently have both a SkyConnect & Aeotec Z-Stick 7 connected to my Home Assistant (via ZHA & ZWave-JS UI) by 2 meter USB extenders. There are still located in my equipment rack. I would like to have these extended another 20’ so it’ll also be central to all my devices as well as avoiding ZigBee USB Interference. I’ve looked at mutiport USB 2.0 over Ethernet externders, but they require AC power which I have no access so after extended. What are my options of extending these controllers?
Zigbee and Z-Wave are both mesh networks.
The point is not to move the radio; the point is to have many radios.
There are dedicated “repeaters” which just route, however most mains-powered devices do this with a free sensor or switch.
I have all those in place already. The issue is the construction of the house where mains repeaters doesn’t really help. Specifically on the ZigBee side.
Can I check if you are pairing the Zigbee devices next to the co-ordinator?
This often means mesh is not properly used (turn the coordinator OFF for >60 minutes to force a Zigbee mesh recalculation).
Even if your RF environment is really that bad, moving the co-ordinators won’t help coverage in a good mesh (only a slight reduction in latency). Look for the many posts here on improving mesh networks.
There were remote Z-Wave co-ordinators designed for hotel rooms powered over PoE, but not seen them on sale for some years (posted details in the forum before). Z-Wave networks typically “heal” regularly at 02:00 so the mesh gets recalculated.
Beyond that:
I’ve followed the basic principals of setting up a Zigbee network which is start by building the foundation from your coordinator. This means add mains routers (wall outlets in my case) and extend out to ensure you have good coverages. I then add devices closest to the respective routers as possible. This works fine, but every so often, I would have delays in communication and devices would just go offline.
Right now, the topology looks like this…I’m not too sure what the optimal LQI values should be, but there’s alot of red going back to the coordinator (to other devices too)
Going off of the community guide, one of the recommendation is to centralize the coordinator if possible, which is what I’m trying to achieve.
In on of my other setups, I’m using a deCONZ GW on a RPi via Ser2Net. This works great as Home Assistant connects to the deCONZ GW via IP. I have not yet seen a similar setup for ZHA, which is why I prompted this post to see what others are doing.