Zigbee from a Rackmount Server

Hardware
1

Hi there,

I’ve been a happy HA user for a few years now! Over the holiday period I embarked on a project to move my networking and other hardware into an acoustic server rack. I want to move HA from a raspberry pi to a VM on a rackmount server inside this case.

Until now I’ve been using a CC2531 USB dongle I bought from Ebay, which has a header on the back with which to install a standard wifi antenna. The dongle would be used with the wifi antenna directly connected to the header with no cable in between. Now that the USB dongle will be inside a metal cabinet (that weights 80kg when empty!), I think the antenna needs to be moved outside.

  • Firstly, should I continue using this USB dongle? Is there anything better for my use-case?
  • Secondly, will I experience signal strength problems if I add an extra .5m of wire length to the antenna to route it to a keystone connector and then another .3m of length from the patch panel to the antenna with something like this (with the wire cut to size)?
  • How would I measure the signal strength?

Thanks
JH

2

Use a USB extension lead instead.

3

You beat me to the answer. I use USB extensions to separate the three USB dongles I have on my Home Assistant NUC.

4

Ok, I found a nice USB keystone connector, so I can route the cables the same way, but with USB instead. Thanks!