USB spectrum analyzer => $60 saves hours

Community Playground General Discussions
1

I thought I’d post this as a tip to others frustrated with the network randomly failing after months of functioning fine.

I’ve had a vera 2 about 9 months. It worked beautifully for a couple months - maintenance free, then the network failed. ~30 nodes. It couldn’t talk to any except the one nearest the Vera. I reset the network re-added all the devices, and after several hours got it up and going again. Then after a couple months the same thing happened again. Out of frustration, I tried a Homeseer free trial with a laptop and a dongle, but it had the same problem! So I reset everything again and went back to my Vera 2 and it worked beautifully again … for a couple months.

This time I figured I need to see what’s going on, so I spent $60 on a “Ubiquiti USB 900MHz Spectrum Analyzer”.

With a centrally positioned Vera it was very slow to respond and was reaching the nearest ~15 of 30 nodes only, Heal didn’t help. I started noticing the outside lights on were left on when the sunset timer should have turned them off.

It turns out the spectrum analyzer showed high constant output - so I walked around to where it was strongest - a 2gig thermostat. I hit the reset button and voila! The output stopped and the whole network was good as new.

SO, if that sounds like a problem you’re having, I have to say it was $60 well spent. It also could help you track down any other source of interference.

2

Good bit of sleuthing! I think I remember seeing another post before where someone had a a single node screwing things up! I think one of the first port of calls in anyone’s troubleshooting should be to down-power the whole house!

It makes you wonder how often problems are caused by rouge nodes, and people then blame it on poor ole Vera!

3

I had that problem. I had one node that was effectively jamming my whole network. I fired up the Zwave sniffer I got back when we were testing the Kwikset locks and found the culprit that was constantly blasting.

4

BSBNT, Do you have a link to the product? We always use Z-Wave Zniffer’s to debug these issues, but they don’t tell you about interference or anything other than Z-Wave traffic. This sounds like a useful tool.

5

maybe this?

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-900MHz-Spectrum-Analyzer-External/dp/B004EHWJRW

6

Sounds like Ubiquiti’s AirView9 or AirView9-Ext, if you’re searching their site.

7

Yes that’s the device.

As follow up, I had the same thing happen with another of my three 2gig ct30 thermostats. Different nodes stopped working because it was in a different part of the house. I loved these thermostats up until now.

Is this a known issue with their thermostats? Easy fix to hit reset, but a hassle to have parts of the mesh network randomly drowned out by noise.