I want to be able to switch on- and off the lights of my barn.
Therefore I use the Sonoff SBMini
But unfortuannally the device is often off-line, probbably because it is too far awar form the nearest zigbee device.
So, I have bought this zigbee extender
After installing this extender, the ZBMini is better, but sometimes it does not send a response on the on- off command. or even does not respond to my command.
So, the extender is working, but still not enough.
I have tried to use the Philips Hue to control it, but the distance was too far.
No using teh extender it is better.
Does anybady have an idea how to solve this?
The situation is as follows.
The distance between the ZBMini and the nearest zigbee device is appox: 25 meters.
This is from my house to the barn.
Between my house an the barn i doe not have any possebilities to place a device, due to the lack of an electricity outlet.
A neighbor was tossing a couple of old Dish Network satellite dishes, so I took them to experiment with. I replaced the LNA in one with an ESP device to act as a signal strength meter. Then I went outside and pointed it at my house (where all the AP’s are). From no dish to with dish, I saw a 10-15 dB increase in signal strength. If I put a Zigbee router on each end, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it connect reliably for more than 20 meters.
You might have a fighting chance if you use a couple of smlight (or similar devices with external antennas) flashed with router firmware. Drill a hole in both your walls and extend the antenna to the outside.
Zigbee should easily make a 20m connection line-of sight, so that would work. If it doesn’t, then at least you have a spare dongle of the two you can reflash with coordinator firmware and set up a separate zigbee mesh, provided you can get ethernet to the barn
I did similar with a couple xbees. I needed to extend a mesh into a metal building about 10m away from a house, used external antennas and placed one in a window and the other outside of the metal building. Has worked very well.
