I’m about to setup a Kwikest zwave lock with Veralite. What is the maximum distance allowed? The general wiki says 30 feet (but less if walls are involved). Is this fairly accurate?
I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to get Vera that close. I understand that some zwave devices (those that support the security protocol) will act as repeaters. The wiki says that it must be the last node in the route to Vera. To me this implies that non-security enabled zwave devices will participate in repeating the signal to/from the lock (which might be important for me). Have I understood this correctly? One of the reasons I’m asking is that the wiki article is pretty old and wanted to make sure it wasn’t outdated.
The wiki article stands true. Locks are a touchy subject when it comes to communication. If you can put a beaming capable zwave device(s) near the lock you should be ok. Many ge zwave devices support this as well as some Evolv devices as well.
Should the beaming-capable zwave device be close to the lock or close to Vera? Wiki says it is supposed to be the last one in the route to Vera. If I put it close to the lock it is unlikely to be the last one in the route to Vera. Have I misunderstood?
I just installed a Vera Lite and a Yale lock. I had the same concerns. I have the Vera in a basement mechanical room and the lock on the first floor about 25 horizontal feet from where the Vera is. Obviously there is a floor in between the two. There is also a set of stairs and two solid doors. I put a GE/Jasco appliance module about 8 feet from the lock. It is a beaming capable device. I have had perfect communication so far (about 3 weeks since installation). I don’t any devices any closer to the Vera.
I’m installing another one next week so I’ll have another test point but so far it is working fairly well. From my reading it looks like most of the GE/Jasco devices support beaming.
Thanks for the help, but it’s still not clear to me if the beam-capable device should be close to Vera or the lock (assuming I already have some non-beam capable zwave devices throughout the house).
Vera supports beaming and may be talking to your lock directly.
If Vera and the lock are too far apart, an intermediate, beam-capable node is required. Vera needs to be able to reach the intermediate node, and the intermediate node needs to be able to reach the lock.
So, ideally, the intermediate node sits there where signal strength between it and Vera, and it and the lock is optimal. MCV appear to suggest the range of the locks is less than is typical for Z-Wave devices, because of their nature (lots of metal etc.).
Thus, hypothetically, the intermediate node is placed closer to the lock than it is to Vera?
(Direct, or single intermediate-node communication, is assumed.)
Okay that makes a bit more sense to me now.
The way I was reading that before was just that the beaming device had to be closer to the lock and you could have anything else in between.
That of course makes no sense since the whole point of beaming is encryption and how is it encrypted end to end if not all the devices are capable of beaming?
So someone correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it there needs to be a beaming capable device along the entire path from vera to the lock… otherwise the encrypted signal won’t make it to the lock and lock won’t work as intended.
The wiki (http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Schlage_Lock) says ‘the last node in the route must be capable of “Zensor Net Beam” (ZNB)’. When I first posted I was thinking “last node” meant the one closest to Vera (which didn’t make much sense to me). I now realize, of course, that this can be interpreted differently depending on your perspective (traffic going from Vera to lock, or traffic going from lock to Vera). I’m now thinking others who have posted here are correct in saying it needs to be the one closest to the lock … that makes the most sense to me.
Yes, others are indeed correct. The beam capable device must be the last node to the lock. The beaming is not for encryption, but for waking up a device that is in a low power state. The beam pretty much sends a short packet frame to the device saying “hey I have something for you”. The device then wakes up to receive the full packet information. All of the encryption information is just forward through each device to get to it’s destination. If you do a search on google for “Zensor Net Beam”, there is a document explaining it all in more details.
Actually, as others have pointed out also, beaming and encryption are two different features. Both happen to be used for the locks. However there are other devices which require just beaming, for example; like the CT30 thermostat.
Beaming is to ‘wake up’ the battery-powered lock. So the node nearest the lock (on the route from Vera to the lock) needs to support beaming.
Encryption is to send secure messages between Vera and the lock. The intermediate nodes don’t look at those messages, they just forward them. So it doesn’t matter if the message says ‘unlock’ or, say, ‘)$*Dk303@’.
Not all messages exchanged between the lock and Vera are encrypted.
