I try to automate my house as much as possible, especially daily routines like opening and closing blinds in our 20-something windows house saves me time.
All blinds are running on Shelly Z-wave and from time to time some of the devices are note reacting so I decided to play safe and place a Homey Bridge on our upper floor, thinking that it would make my Z-wave mesh more stable in the remote rooms.
Now the fact is that none of the Z-wave devices are connecting to the Homey Bridge and I wonder what the Bridge is actually doing for me… Did I just spend 69 EUR on a pseudo box or is it really improving something for me - and if so, what exactly?
Below is a screen shot of my Z-wave mesh. The bridge has NodeID 37 and is not used for any routing.
For Z-Wave and Zigbee the bridge ‘just’ acts as a normal router device, like any other mains powered Z-Wave device. The network connection between your Homey Pro and Bridge does not extend the Z-Wave range over that network.
So the Brigde needs to have a stable Z-Wave connection to another Z-Wave device in order to extend the Z-Wave mesh network. Like any other device.
Further, as far as I understand, using the Bridge in satellite mode as an extension to you Homey Pro, only works with the Homey Pro 2023 or Mini. Not sure which model you have.
Just like Sunbeech explained: it acts as your ordinary z-wave / zigbee router.
Why your devices don’t use it as hop, no one knows. Z-wave/zigbee tend to keep steady connections, despite newly added routers nearby.
Only when you temporary cut the power from Homey (optional: and all z-wave/zigbee devices), the mesh is forced to build itself up from zero, when power is restored.
Mesh networks can extend their reach with additional routers.
BUT, (almost) any mains powered z-wave / zigbee device has the same router functionality (for way less €€€) as the bridge does, plus they don’t need+use wifi in addition.
Maybe I’m a bit thick…
I now get it that the bridge just works as any other z-wave device when it comes to routing. So in my case where I was hoping to establish a boosted z-wave access point/hub this is not possible. I should have informed myself better before buying the bridge.
With that squared out, how does the bridge boost my Homey network? How can it help me and how can I use it to actually get more out of it than just a nice pulsating LED ring?
Put the Bridge on a location between the Homey Pro 2023 and the Z-wave/Zigbee devices.
Powerdown your Homey, Powerdown your Bridge, restart your Bridge then restart your Homey.
If ‘lucky’ devices wil connect to the Bridge and the Bridge will connect to your Homey.
But if a route from Homey to another Z-wave/Zigbee device is better it just might pass-by your Bridge again. As said, it does about the same as any other mains powered Z-Wave/Zigbee device.
