Second ZWA-2 as a repeater?

Configuration Z-Wave
1

I have a large three-floor house built in three sections with multiple interior brick walls. The ZWA-2 is an improvement over my ZAC93 with Home Assistant Yellow, but I still doesn’t reach the far end of the house well - messages rely on the mesh rather than direct connection. I’m seeing 3-4 hops for some devices, and some that don’t reliably work.

Can the ZWA-2 be configured as a simple repeater node without being used as a controller? Hopefully reducing everything to two hops rather than 3-4.

I wish I’d played around with this prior to migrating controllers. A single controller with a strong repeater is preferrable to a second ZW network over IP.

2

No. In this case second network may be just perfect.

Maybe if main controller was at middle floor it would be better.?

Why not just add AC repeater

3

I have 100+ powered z-wave devices that function as repeaters, including dedicated AC repeaters.
The controller is on a middle floor, in the central portion of the house.

I like the ZWA-2 for the actual 1/4 wavelength antenna. I’m not aware of any other ZW repeater with a 1/4 wavelength antenna, the HomeSeer ZNet is the best IP ZW extender, but it still suffers from the small integral antenna.

I could use a ZWA-2 with an RPi as an IP extender, but it would be much simpler to have a simple repeater with a 1/4 wavelength antenna.

4

if you want devices to direct connection instead of mesh, you will have to force exclude then re-add them as long range.