1- In an 8k sq ft home, where let’s say the first floor and the third floor home theater will have Z-wave devices but none in between, how can Z-wave communicate? Is there a repeater or bridge device that I can use to link areas? For instance, maybe connect some kind of device to ethernet or ethernet-over-powerline to communicate with the third floor?
2- Same home, also has a studio/ garage separated from the main house. Homeowner wants to control the lights, etc from the same control in the house. How can these devices get commands etc from the main home controller? Studio has it’s own wifi and ethernet connection to home network.
Interesting questions… All I can think of (mostly for the first item) is to place one or more simple plug-in lamp/appliance module(s) somewhere in between to extend the coverage and bridge networks. Unless the requirement to not have any Z-wave modules between 2 networks is strict…
Most of the power modules are called routing slaves and they will repeat the data so you will not have any problems as long you put plenty of devices in your home.
same thing is here you need to have to routing slaves that can talk to hethoters then i might be okay.
8 thousand foot house maybe too large for zwave.
I hear you con use a Wayne dalton USB as a repeater only .
all you need is a usb to ac wall wart and your set to go.
Adding plugin modules can be a nightmare. remove one and youre cooked.
Also zwave from my understanding is 4 hops for a device. That is the farthest device can only hop 4 times before it gets to the controller. This could pose a problem
could be quite expensive to due a test I’d consult a expert in your area.
I am sure you can do that. what concerns me is you would have two networks and how you would interact with them could be an issue. Ie how would you control a light from one system to another?
You need to know that there is a limit to how many hops a device can repeat through. That is currently 4.
The number of total nodes is a issue also because the more nodes you have the more latency you can have in the network. I have never tried such a large network this would concern me.
To MCV members, i just like to know what is the total number of nodes/ zwave devices ??? and Areas(sq ft) can be covered by Vera? While vera and still works perfectly without much latency or intermittent errors. I’m currently having total 15 devices (2 IP cam, 2 ZIR010, others all Switches & plug-in module) working fine, just the IP cam view still not up to expectation, the Video/mjpeg view really small and flicks too often. Just hope the video streaming support can be improve…
Could you use multiple Vera devices? 1 could be the main and the others slave controllers?
For instance- 1 main unit in the house and a second slave in the garage/ studio connected over ethernet and working with commands from the primary?
As part of the new LuaUPnP (see; http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/LuaUPnP) we’re also adding distributed Vera’s. So you’ll be able to add multiple Vera’s with separate z-wave dongles and have them all aggregated under one master unit. This will extend the range/number of z-wave nodes to an unlimited amount.
Could you use multiple Vera devices? 1 could be the main and the others slave controllers?
For instance- 1 main unit in the house and a second slave in the garage/ studio connected over ethernet and working with commands from the primary?
As part of the new LuaUPnP (see; http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/LuaUPnP) we’re also adding distributed Vera’s. So you’ll be able to add multiple Vera’s with separate z-wave dongles and have them all aggregated under one master unit. This will extend the range/number of z-wave nodes to an unlimited amount.[/quote]
My house is about 6,500 sq ft. and I have modules in almost every room and zWave works fine inside the house. I have 3 outdoor modules for landscape lighting and it covers them as well, OK, but module for pond lighting does not work consistently well and it is only about 30 feet from another outdoor module and 30 feet from the outside wall of the house.
Regarding repeaters, easiest way is to just install additional modules, even if not used specifically in network they will repeat Zwave signal. I use a lighting module for this in part of my house to improve the network.
Using Vera for a client install would be a huge mistake at this point, especially if you would be relying on “new” features to ensure it works from the LUUP firmware and multiple Vera’s. Vera is definitely not reliable enough to use in client install, unless you want constant call backs to remedy issues.
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