Very poor zwave range and bizzare mesh

Questions & Help
1

I know this subject has been discussed a lot on here, and from what i can read the range issues on Homey Pro remain, but i have some very strange range and mesh issues that i can not understand.

If my house is represented by a compass, then my Homey sits in the middle. To the North is a garage (part of house) with aluminium foil backed insulation round all sides. This was always going to be a dead zone and i expected issues, but this is not my problem as 99% of the time the zwave devices in there work.

The issue is with the West direction. My house is brick with wooden internal walls. I have about 18 zwave devices spread out across the house in all directions. But the ones to the West (2 internal) don’t work any more than 10% of the time at best, and i keep having to “heal” them.

The closest device to Homey is a Repeater that sits about 50cm away though a wooden wall in the west room, with a direct connection as you would expect at that range. I placed it there try an improve the signal in that part of the house.

In that room (west) are two Aeotec Smart Switches that try and mesh with two devices that are in the far East of the house, before the signal comes halfway back to the Homey ! They appear to take the most torturious route possible.

The repeater and a range extender in another part of the house do nothing to help and on the developer page are not meshed, or used by the mesh.

At the far west i have a pond outside, with three Aeotec Smart Switches. These are used to run and monitor pumps (for failure), These switches are housed in a plastic box mounted to a wall with a direct line of sight through a window to the Repeater. 6m of free outside air and then 3m otherside of window, inside the house.

There is also one of the Smart Switches 4m away from the pond control box, through an external wall.

The routing of some of the switches and the Mesh structure is strange and make no sence, and i think if it would mesh properly my issues may be significantly reduced. The Range extenders are just taking up socket space for not advantage.

Any one got any ideas ?

Looked a new Homey Pro as mine is a 2016 version, but without a gaurentee the range is better i am not wasting 400 Euros !

Andrew

3

I am not thinking Homey Pro would be better on range, nothing i have read supports that. But i did explore it, as often, new updated equipment has significant improvements. Range does not appear to be one of them in Homey Pro, only memory, storage and processor. None of which will help my situation.

On the developer page, i can see that the reapeater and range extenders have a direct connection to Homey, but are not used in any other routing paths, even though they would be a good step point. Rather the mesh appears to take the longest route possible, often leaping for one side of the house to the other.

I have placed a Smart Switch right beside the Homey to see if it can do a better job as a repeater or improve the mesh. Again it is not used by any routing path.

Andrew

5

Hey Roy
here you can see the mesh :wink:

https://developer.athom.com/tools/zwave

7

well if you see the Routes you also see which devices are togehter in a Mesh Network … :wink:

9

well i also have a strange thing
what the hell is NODE 72

image
image1357Ă—99 8.05 KB

lol nice right ??

11

yes the zwave tool only shows you the last route the device took. It is not a mesh layout tool. A proper mesh tool shows you each node, and its neighbour nodes also, as well as signal strength and routing. Zwave allaince has a zwave tool kit for a rasp pi, not sure where you can find the software as this is only available for members of the z-wave alliance. But I am sure its out there if you really want to scan your z-wave network.

1 Like
12

Easy fix, and this is a homey pro.

15875826255235484031914392512187
158758262552354840319143925121873024Ă—4032 2.85 MB

13

Parts arrive today for the modification, hope this works !

14

Modifcation now done, does seem better but not sure how i measure it ?
Any ideas ?
Andrew

15

I am a newby to Homey, but I have an eedomus running in my holiday house. Maybe it helps the discussion on showing the mesh: eedomus calls it the matrix. The routing of my homey also shows a ghost device, and a connection between two devices which is certainly not optimal. In the eedomus I can set the optimzation of the mesh. Can I do that also for the Homey?

eedomus zwave matrix
eedomus zwave matrix2082Ă—1450 125 KB

1 Like
16

Oh, and as far as the signal strength: that is showing in eedomus as “network quality” in the default view “system configuration”. When signal is not available, last contact and battery level are very informative. So the eedomus GUI may be not as slick as Homey’s, it is useful. I’d like Homey would improve this type of information.

eedomus system configuration
eedomus system configuration1370Ă—1512 125 KB

1 Like
17

Anyway, I was looking at this topic because I also have a similar problem.
At the entrance of my apartment I have a Qubino mini dimmer which has a very poor range, probably because it is behind the copper wiring (as all of these dimmers must have). However, I also installed a Fibaro door sensor, which has a good range due to its position. So I would expect that the dimmer can route via the door sensor, but it is only connecting directly to the Homey (if that one is close- approx 3 meter) or not (showing “unreachable”). How can I force the search for optimal Zwave routing with Homey (as I can with eedomus)?

The Zwave optimization must be a functionality of the Homey as the Zwave mesh should include all Zwave nodes independent from supplier. As you can see from the eedomus mesh, node 27 (Popp smoke sensor) connects via node 4, which is a Fibaro door sensor.

PS when I installed the door sensor in my apartment it routed via the dimmer, which was even worse, so I had to remove and add the door sensor again.

18

Could be my mistake, but in your pictures i see no mesh anywhere either. Just routes. And that is exactly what Homey shows (albeit without the information in the last picture, but that is present also on the device details).