Homey Bridge range extending

Questions & Help
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1

Hello!

I am planning to replace the existing other brand Z-wave smart home system due to operational problems. However, I have not used the Homey system before, so I would like to ask for help with a few questions.

It is a larger 3-story family house, where there are nearly 90 of 230V smart devices (Fibaro, Heatit, Heltun, Aeotec) and 30 of battery Z-wave devices.

In the past, signal strength and communication problems caused by this arose, as the area is large and the walls are thick in the basement, so the devices were often disconnected from the Z-wave network or operated with a very long delay.

For the above reasons, I am thinking about building more of the Pro + 2 Bridge Satellite mode described on the website, but I do not fully understand how it works.

In satellite mode, does the Bridge device act as a repeater/range extender for the Pro center? Does it communicate with the central point locally via Z-wave or LAN/WIFI or does it work on a Cloud basis? If it is based on the Cloud, it will unfortunately not be a suitable choice, because in the event of an internet outage, the system will not be fully functional. In such a case, what would be the right choice to cover the entire Z-wave network of a large and multi-storey building? Should several control centers be linked together?

Thank you in advance for your respectful reply!
Best regards, David

3

Hi David,

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Meaning, the bridge is your ordinary, but expensive, z-wave router, just like almost any mains powered z-wave device.
But, whilst it actually can relay Bluetooth, IR and 433MHz signals per LAN, it then might justify the investment.

By putting enough z-wave routers throughout your home in a smart way, it should be possible to create one mesh network.
Maybe adding extra routers on both floors close to a stairway, helps the signal to hop floors more easy. With thick basement walls, putting them close to door(s)might help as well.

No, only it temporary needs internet when you (re)connect it to a Homey Pro.

Aeotec is known for possible choking the entire Homey z-wave mesh, because of excessively sending polling and status updates.
I’ve read someone got Aeotecs ‘advice’ to add z-wave routers, which only makes it worse.
With adding every Aeotec z-wave device, decrease the polling and status update intervals to sane levels right away.

4

Thanks for this. It took me a while to figure out. Its a really shame that its not possible to use a Homey Bridge in another building, even if its connected to the same LAN. I have really hope that it could be used as Zigbee Coordinator. But not.

Only solution as I could see is to use another product and use this app: Zigbee2MQTT App for Homey | Homey