zWave

[ugimports]

Anyone here know anything about zWave?

I've got a pretty simple setup.

zWave Hub
|
| 30ft
| interior wall
|
power plug 1 (https://amzn.to/3b7IHYz)
| 2ft
| exterior wall (to backyard)
power plug 2 (https://amzn.to/3b7IHYz)

Communication from hub to power plug 1 - non-issue. communication to power plug 2 -- spotty. it keeps showing availlable / unavailable throughout the day.

That same power plug 2 if I install inside the house... no issue... (so I don't think hardware issue)..

Given this is supposed to be a mesh network I would have thought being about 2 feet away from power plug 1 should be ok.. however, is the exterior wall really blocking the signal that much? Do I need to get a repeater like this one: https://amzn.to/2Zl4yGs -- I have one of these installed in my kitchen (towards front of house) that is used to get signal for some sensors in my garage and it seems to work well..

I was hoping to not have to get another repeater given the 2 power plugs were so close to each other. However, if this is what's needed I'll get it and install it next to power plug 1.

Thanks for any input.

[gwanghoops]

Did you learn in power plug 2 outside the house or inside the house and move it outside? If you did the latter, that might be the problem. AFAIK, it should be learned in from where it will be located for proper routing. In either case, ZWAVE has the ability to update the routing table in case you relocated nodes...check the hub instructions.

In addition, we never used dedicated extenders, just dependable AC switches.

[ugimports]

Did you learn in power plug 2 outside the house or inside the house and move it outside? If you did the latter, that might be the problem. AFAIK, it should be learned in from where it will be located for proper routing. In either case, ZWAVE has the ability to update the routing table in case you relocated nodes...check the hub instructions.

In addition, we never used dedicated extenders, just dependable AC switches.

I initially paired it about 10 feet away from hub. Since I relocated it to the end destination I've done the "update neighbor nodes" function on my hub which is supposed to do the re-routing on the network. I don't know of a way to run a debug to see if it actually did that or not.. perhaps that is still the issue though.. I'll dig into this more..maybe there's a way to for me to check the routing on my hub to see if it did indeed route properly..

All the nodes (switches or plugs) should be able to act as repeaters, correct?

Do you use any power plugs? Maybe I'll look at swapping these out since I did just get them so I have a return window with Amazon still...

[gwanghoops]

I initially paired it about 10 feet away from hub. Since I relocated it to the end destination I've done the "update neighbor nodes" function on my hub which is supposed to do the re-routing on the network. I don't know of a way to run a debug to see if it actually did that or not.. perhaps that is still the issue though.. I'll dig into this more..maybe there's a way to for me to check the routing on my hub to see if it did indeed route properly..

All the nodes (switches or plugs) should be able to act as repeaters, correct?

Do you use any power plugs? Maybe I'll look at swapping these out since I did just get them so I have a return window with Amazon still...

If you're lucky, your hub has the ability to view it's routing table...but really, to debug this, you'd have to get a ZWAVE sniffer and watch the over the air traffic.

All powered nodes will "route" based upon the sender's instructions but does not repeat what it receives. If the hub routing table is bad and tries to talk to power plug #2 directly, power plug #1 won't do anything.

Newer ZWAVE devices do power measurements and require factory calibration to get routing information done more accurately, but then you trust they did this correctly. Sometimes old ZWAVE devices work better especially if you don't care about security.

Sorry, I don't use ZWAVE stuff at home, just did it in my prior life.

I'd just nuke the hub and re-learn #1 and then #2 in their fixed locations.

[ugimports]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll give that a try and re-pair those devices tonight.

[the86d]

Does pairing do crypto?

Not sure about Zwave, but I know some bridges called powerline are actually high-freq. wireless devices, that just claim to use the powerline for the backbone...

[gwanghoops]

Does pairing do crypto?

If both the controller and new node supports security.