Initial setup - Big house - HELP!

Community Playground Getting Started & Initial Setup
1

Hello.

I purchased a Vera 3 and some Fibaro relay switches and dimmers just for testing. I put them together on a “mini lab”. They worked flawlessly.

So, passing this test, we bought about 40 of these Fibaro products (which are the smallest ones and fits perfectly inside the lighting switch box).

Before installing them into the house, I included all of them into Vera, with no problems in the same “mini lab”.

Yesterday, we did some real tests on the house (using Vera’s bundled web server), which is a 530 square meters, 3 floors. The tests failed on a distance of less than 10 meters in line of sight. Sometimes the relays activated with a delay of aprox. 1 minute (which is not acceptable at all). So, we stopped testing. And here am I, asking for assistance, because my job is at stake here…

What can I do?

I was thinking about installing all the relays in their corresponding light switches and make a healing of the network (with Vera in its final position on the utility room). Will that help? other than that idea, I’m helpless.

Thanks in advance for every help you could give.

Gerardo

2

You should always perform a heal after adding in zwave devices. Best performed in there final location. Give it a try. Start small and work your way up.

  • Garrett
3

Well, this is why the recommended approach is to include them AFTER they are in situ. Suprisingly, if you leave Vera on overnight, it might all work tomorrow. Or you can instigate a Z-Wave network ‘heal’ to mend this. The problem is probably that all the routing tables are completely wrong, because none of the nodes know where the others are located.

4

Thanks guys for your replies.

So, the routing tables will fix themselves after healing? and that’s it?

Gerardo

5

Every time you add a new zwave device, a heal should be performed so the proper routes are used for communication. This provides better response and reliability. Zwave is a mesh network (think of a spider web) the more links the better. This should be the first step to see if it solves your issue.

  • Garrett
6

If you had devices that were included to Vera … but are not installed in the new home … you will have problems … Vera will continue to try to find routes with no success.

7

So, better wait to have the devices installed on the house, reset vera and then add them one by one? I wanted to skip that part, but makes sense.

Thanks

8

No need to reset. As they are already included, install them in their final location and run a full network heal.

  • Garrett
9

[quote=“garrettwp, post:8, topic:174395”]No need to reset. As they are already included, install them in their final location and run a full network heal.

  • Garrett[/quote]
    Thanks Garrett, I’ll do that. My neck depends on this.

Gerardo

10

I hope that these are not installed in metal boxes.

There is one other option if there is performance problems:
You can modify the Vera with an external antenna:
[url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,11276.0.html]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,11276.0.html[/url]

Chris has a picture of what looks like a 3DB antenna … That’s 2X power or 40% more range.
I installed a 6DB antenna … it looks weird … it’s about 1 foot long … but it’s 4X power or 100% more range.
You will void the warranty of your Vera … but that’s a small price compared to what you have in the job.

11

Gerardo

Had to ask… What happened?
Bit worried that we haven’t heard from you!