My VeraLite is at the front of the house. I placed an Everspring AN157 in my garage which is 8 feet from the rear of the house. I kept getting an error code 2 when I tried to switch the device on/off remotely. I replaced it with a TBK Home and it works perfectly. So I assume the Everspring doesnt have as good as range as the TBK. Is this assumption correct.
The weird thing is that I have a Fibaro relay about half way between the controller and the unit in the garage so I assumed that would help the range.
Should I buy a range extender and put it at the back of the house? Would this help? Which one is best for a UK installation?
This tells us nothing about how far Vera is from the AN157. Even if it did, it may not be helpful since we don’t know what lies between that might interfere with the signal.
I kept getting an error code 2 when I tried to switch the device on/off remotely. I replaced it with a TBK Home and it works perfectly. So I assume the Everspring doesnt have as good as range as the TBK. Is this assumption correct.
I can't say of it is correct or not. But it is a likely assumption.
The weird thing is that I have a Fibaro relay about half way between the controller and the unit in the garage so I assumed that would help the range.
It may well be helping. Again, we don't know what the distance is, nor what lies between the devices. But, if it is a routed path, did you remember to run a network heal after putting the AN157 in place?
Should I buy a range extender and put it at the back of the house? Would this help?
It may help to put one between the Fibaro and the garage, or between Vera and the garage. So far, the range extenders that I have seen cost nearly as much as a switch or receptacle. I'd rather use a switch/receptacle/plugin module as a "range extender" with utility than spend almost as much for a node that does nothing other than route.
My bad. I forgot to mention the range.
To get from the Vera unit to the AN157 in the garage the signal has to pass through one internal brick wall and one external nine inch cavity brick wall and then a single 4.5 inch brick wall. Total distance 30 feet.
The fibaro relay unit in between the two is probably 12 feet from the vera unit. Therefore in theory the signal never has to travel more than 18feet without being repeated. The TKB unit operates no problem. The AN157 never received the signal. I did a network heal after Installed the AN157 unit. Made no difference.
I wonder if the TBK units have a better transceiver than the everspring?
Good point on the extender. The cheapest Ive seen is ?25. May as well just use another AN157.
Maybe because Im in an older house which is a more solid construction than modern houses. All internall walls are 4.5inch brick work with cement render and plaster. External wallls are twin 4.5inch brick walls with a cavity and rendered in cement outside and cement and plaster on the inside. Just a thought.
3.5 inch brick has an attenuation(degradation, or loss, of signal) of ~3.5dB. That means that the signal strength will be approximately halved by each wall. So, your signal strength is down to ~12% of its original power by time it passes the third wall, regardless of free space distances which further reduce the signal strength.
I wonder if the TBK units have a better transceiver than the everspring?
Though I could be wrong, I think that they all use the same Z-Wave chip(transceiver), the difference will be in the antenna, the antenna location, and the casing.
Maybe because Im in an older house which is a more solid construction than modern houses. All internall walls are 4.5inch brick work with cement render and plaster. External wallls are twin 4.5inch brick walls with a cavity and rendered in cement outside and cement and plaster on the inside.
That's a good solid house. Noise probably doesn't penetrate those walls. Unfortunately neither does 900Mhz radio frequency.
Though probably to deep for the average DIYer, here’s a great paper on indoor path loss ftp://ftp1.digi.com/support/images/XST-AN005a-IndoorPathLoss.pdf that has a table listing the attenuation of various building materials. If you understand the basics of RF its an easy read that makes the point clear.
Edit: Correct URL due to SMF auto formatting.