We have a 1,774 sq ft single story home, and a vera 3.
As you may have seen in other threads, I have had ongoing issues with luup restarts, and issues with schlage deadbolts.
Our home isn’t that big/long. Should we really be seeing heal reports like this? To put in perspective, the “Garage Entry Door” is literally less than 4 feet away from the vera unit. There is a hollow wood door in between the two, but I normally leave it open. So it is line of sight.
The Kitchen units are also all near the vera unit. I put a few GE/Jasco outlets around the house to try and help “repeat” the network a bit, however they don’t seem to have helped much.
My next step is to try the antenna mod option to see if that helps at all…however I just don’t see why there is this much of an issue in a house our size.
so, the report looks bad on the battery devices in particular, but I see that too and have a pretty broad zwave network.
Is the system not responding correctly, or is it working well?
[quote=“Bulldoglowell, post:2, topic:181016”]so, the report looks bad on the battery devices in particular, but I see that too and have a pretty broad zwave network.
Is the system not responding correctly, or is it working well?[/quote]
Most things respond fine, really the only one that gives me a problem is the Front Door lock. That one many times will fail.
try moving the controller closer for several days. If that makes it better, go and add an intermediate node. Make sure that they are appropriate repeaters for the locks.
Check out the forum, anything Z-Waver recommends, you are solid.
[quote=“EOppie, post:1, topic:181016”]We have a 1,774 sq ft single story home, and a vera 3.
As you may have seen in other threads, I have had ongoing issues with luup restarts, and issues with schlage deadbolts.
Our home isn’t that big/long. Should we really be seeing heal reports like this? To put in perspective, the “Garage Entry Door” is literally less than 4 feet away from the vera unit. There is a hollow wood door in between the two, but I normally leave it open. So it is line of sight.
The Kitchen units are also all near the vera unit. I put a few GE/Jasco outlets around the house to try and help “repeat” the network a bit, however they don’t seem to have helped much.
My next step is to try the antenna mod option to see if that helps at all…however I just don’t see why there is this much of an issue in a house our size.[/quote]
I too was having intermittent issues with my network and my report has somewhat resembled yours. The worst devices were my Kwikset locks. My home is 3025 ft^2 but all of my devices are within 20 ft of each other. I finally installed the Info Viewer plugin which gave me an easy way to monitor the logs. I found that the Honeywel Ademco Vista Alarm plugin was creating a lot of “noise” in the logs. I removed the plug-in and re installed it - no more “noise”. I also created manual routes for my Kwikset locks. My Vera has been rock solid every since.
Take a look at your logs, especially LuaUPnp.log. You can find useful info in troubleshooting.
I too have a the Ademco plugin for our Vista 20p…would hate to loose all of those sensors!
I will take a look at the Info Viewer plugin, getting the log files out of vera is a pain for me…I am not as great at code as many are on here.
[quote=“EOppie, post:6, topic:181016”]I too have a the Ademco plugin for our Vista 20p…would hate to loose all of those sensors!
I will take a look at the Info Viewer plugin, getting the log files out of vera is a pain for me…I am not as great at code as many are on here.[/quote]
That may be the issue. The Info Viewer plugin helped me find it.
[url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,13477.0.html]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,13477.0.html[/url]
While the Ademco plugin may make a Vera busy and even make a Vera unstable, I’m not saying that it does I’m just saying ‘if it does’, it will not impact the Z-Wave signal as described in the initial post. @qwen3579 unfortunately chose to use the word “noise” to describe Vera activity, a word that is commonly used to describe radio frequency(RF) noise that can interfere with a signal. But, the Ademco plugin is not/will not create RF noise and should have no impact on a Z-Wave network’s signal quality.
While the distances described should not be an issue for Z-Wave signals, there are many factors besides distance that can have an impact. As alluded in the first post, obstructions and construction materials can have a major impact on Z-Wave signal propagation. Metal such as appliances, steel studs, and especially metal gang boxes can have a major detrimental impact on Z-Wave signal. There is also the hidden issue of interference from external sources on the same frequency. Intercoms and baby monitors are a common source of interference in Z-Wave’s 908MHz(USA) frequency, especially the newer video baby monitors. Wireless telephones and many other devices can have an effect as well.
If you can’t identify the source of interference, or more importantly, if you can’t eliminate the source of the interference then you must accept that your Z-Wave network will only allow a very limited range between devices and, as @Bulldoglowell stated, build out your Z-Wave network with additional nodes to make up for the shortened range.
In @EOppie’s case, he stated that most things work OK, except for a lock. In this case, it probably doesn’t make sense bothering with the other devices that do work, but rather concentrate on the less reliable lock. As @Bulldoglowell said, installing intermediate devices to serve as repeaters between the Vera and the lock is likely your best bet. He mentioned “appropriate repeaters”, the critical detail in appropriate is that the last node in a route to a lock, the node that actually hands the command packet directly to the lock, must support a feature called Beaming. Many Z-Wave devices support Beaming, but many do not. Make sure that what you add supports Beaming.
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:8, topic:181016”]While the Ademco plugin may make a Vera busy and even make a Vera unstable, I’m not saying that it does I’m just saying ‘if it does’, it will not impact the Z-Wave signal as described in the initial post. @qwen3579 unfortunately chose to use the word “noise” to describe Vera activity, a word that is commonly used to describe radio frequency(RF) noise that can interfere with a signal. But, the Ademco plugin is not/will not create RF noise and should have no impact on a Z-Wave network’s signal quality.
While the distances described should not be an issue for Z-Wave signals, there are many factors besides distance that can have an impact. As alluded in the first post, obstructions and construction materials can have a major impact on Z-Wave signal propagation. Metal such as appliances, steel studs, and especially metal gang boxes can have a major detrimental impact on Z-Wave signal. There is also the hidden issue of interference from external sources on the same frequency. Intercoms and baby monitors are a common source of interference in Z-Wave’s 908MHz(USA) frequency, especially the newer video baby monitors. Wireless telephones and many other devices can have an effect as well.
If you can’t identify the source of interference, or more importantly, if you can’t eliminate the source of the interference then you must accept that your Z-Wave network will only allow a very limited range between devices and, as @Bulldoglowell stated, build out your Z-Wave network with additional nodes to make up for the shortened range.
In @EOppie’s case, he stated that most things work OK, except for a lock. In this case, it probably doesn’t make sense bothering with the other devices that do work, but rather concentrate on the less reliable lock. As @Bulldoglowell said, installing intermediate devices to serve as repeaters between the Vera and the lock is likely your best bet. He mentioned “appropriate repeaters”, the critical detail in appropriate is that the last node in a route to a lock, the node that actually hands the command packet directly to the lock, must support a feature called Beaming. Many Z-Wave devices support Beaming, but many do not. Make sure that what you add supports Beaming.[/quote]
You’re correct, I should have used a different term. I wasn’t trying trying to infer that this was interfering with the z-wave network.
It’s probably not the signal, but Vera. As qwen said, install info viewer and look at your log files. Allow the log run for awhile in a browser window. Look at what shows up in red. I bet you’ll see reboots as I do on my system.
Are there any electrical devices near your Vera? It’s a long shot but all electronic devices emits RF noise. This noise if close to Vera’s receiver and with harmonics in the 900Mhz range could desensitize Vera’s RF sensitivity. Just unplug anything within 6-10 feet of Vera and see if it changes anything.
Failing a local interferer there is also the chance your Vera is defective. A poorly crimped cable or loose component on the RF front end could be killing sensitivity. I don’t know how rigorous the testing is done on these boxes at manufacture.
Lastly ZWave is repeated by all nodes but there is a special case exception. It applies to locks in that this is encrypted communication. I am not too up on it but I believe it is called beaming. To repeat a signal from Vera to a lock the repeaters need to support beaming and not all zwave devices do. Maybe someone a little deeper on this beaming stuff can chime in.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Correct, locks require beaming, but not because of the encryption. The beaming is what allows the vera to talk to the lock even when its radio is asleep. This way you get the power savings for the batteries but you get to communicate with the device without waiting for a wakeup (like you do with other battery operated z-wave devices). There is a more technical explanation of how beaming works, but i just only care that it does :-). Finally, only the node closest to the lock needs to Support beaming.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk