About to give up on Zwave

[sparkman]

Here's how mine are setup:



I have polling disabled on all of the devices.

Cheers
Al

PS A lot of motion sensors are designed to pick up motion across it, not towards/away from it, so that's not unusual.

[DC]

Thanks. That's very helpful. What are the three groups for?

[randy]

Thanks. That's very helpful. What are the three groups for?

There are 5 items the sensor can report. You can assign any or all of the 5 to any of the 3 groups. Then you can set the reporting interval for each group. It gives you the flexibility to report less important items less frequently and more important ones more frequently. For instance if you want the temperature to report every minute, you can assign that one item to group 1 and set the reporting interval. You can put the remaining items in group 2 and set their interval at 10 minutes.

In Al's screenshot he is reporting luminance and UV in group 1 about evert 10 minutes. He is reporting temperature and humidity in group 2 about every 30 minutes and the battery in group 3 once a day.

[DC]

I'm still trying to make Zwave work. One of my Aeon multi-sensors is about 4 feet from the Z-Net. It works fine. When I move the second one further than about 15 feet away, it doesn't communicate at all. I can install Z-Nets all over the house but it seems ridiculous to have to do that. I'm considering purchasing several repeating type devices (plug in lamp modules, for example) and just placing them around the house to enhance the network. I don't really NEED lamp modules (I use UPB for that) but would that be a good strategy to make the Zwave network usable beyond 15 feet? My house is 110 feet long and the Z-net is near one end on the downstairs so there is little hope of getting anything to work at the other end of the house as it is now.

I don't need Zwave for lighting control. UPB is rock solid for that. I was hoping to use Zwave for monitoring for water leaks and shutting of the water main if it detects a leak, door locks, motion detection, etc. I'm not feeling good about using it for something potentially critical like that unless I can get it working much better.

[sparkman]

I'm still trying to make Zwave work. One of my Aeon multi-sensors is about 4 feet from the Z-Net. It works fine. When I move the second one further than about 15 feet away, it doesn't communicate at all. I can install Z-Nets all over the house but it seems ridiculous to have to do that. I'm considering purchasing several repeating type devices (plug in lamp modules, for example) and just placing them around the house to enhance the network. I don't really NEED lamp modules (I use UPB for that) but would that be a good strategy to make the Zwave network usable beyond 15 feet? My house is 110 feet long and the Z-net is near one end on the downstairs so there is little hope of getting anything to work at the other end of the house as it is now.

I don't need Zwave for lighting control. UPB is rock solid for that. I was hoping to use Zwave for monitoring for water leaks and shutting of the water main if it detects a leak, door locks, motion detection, etc. I'm not feeling good about using it for something potentially critical like that unless I can get it working much better.

I'm surprised your range is that low, but the only way to extend the mesh would be to use powered modules. With a house that long and the z-net not central, you will have issues.

I've heard good things about the Aeotec repeaters, but the advantage of the plugin modules is that they can be used for something else. You could use z-wave outlets as well as that looks a bit cleaner, or perhaps the HSM200 multi-sensor.

Cheers
Al

[DC]

I have 8 plugin nodes now and Zwave is working better. All of the nodes are in about 1/4 of my house. If I put a node more than about 15 feet from the nearest node, it doesn't work at all. So, it's going to take a lot of nodes to provide reliable coverage throughout my house. I'm a long way from having enough confidence in it to use it for critical things like door locks and water shutoff valves but I may get there.

I do like the little Aeotec repeaters. I'll scatter them throughout the house in out-of-the-way outlets so they should really improve the network. I basically just started at one end downstairs and I'll work my way to the other end and upstairs.

[Amigo]

Aeotec small white repeaters worked very well for me as well. I think some people tried to use them for locks but I believe they do not repeat secure messages, so not the right choice for extending lock/secure signals.
The strongest repeaters they have are their sirens in my experience, but no way to disable the sound, so I decided to use the small ones instead.

cheers.