I too deployed many of my ZWave devices haphazardly back in 2013-2014, when I certainly didn't plan on having nearly 80 ZWave devices. (51 on one hub, 28 on the other, today.) I never planned out the mesh because it was clear it wouldn't behave the way I intended. 5 years later and a few hundred ZWave repairs and the most recent device to "fall off" is so far back, I'm inclined to say "Never."
When I split my house into two ZWave Hubs (upstairs / downstairs) I was expecting trouble because "surely one device is key to downstairs that I'll be Excluding..." -- never happened.
I know my Zigbee mesh is weak because A) it's 2.4ghz and I had to install a Peanut to get a Motion sensor to work because it doesn't travel as far; and B) I have 'wall warts' as repeaters and I just know it's gonna get 'cleaned up' any day now. (or month, or year)
I was going to use this but I managed to get a d/w sensor and a repeater to work. But you said you can't have a repeater so I thought I would throw this out there. Two wires from the transmitter go to a contact switch with magnet.
Output of receiver can be tied to the aux. input of a d/w sensor inside the house so HE can pick it up.
Appreciate it.....Ya with zigbee I can't have a repeater (on the neighbors house), which I would need. I've had a zwave contact sensor on the mailbox working fine for over a year (until last week), I guess "indoor use only" does actually apply long term, as after a year it's toast from rain...lol
I tried using a securifi peanut plug to repeat on an outside plug of my house, and used one of my Iris v1 contact sensors to see if they could replace the fibaro zwave I had, only made it half way to the mailbox before it no longer responded. (mailbox is about 150 feet with a neighbor house partially blocking it)
But yes I imagine the above you linked to would work great as well being 315MHz.....
I had similar issues yesterday pairing the Z-wave repeaters in my Iris plugs. They would get stuck on initializing and do nothing from there. I would then go in and start Z-wave inclusion again and they would finally finish.
On a side note... what is the general consensus on how good of a repeater these Iris (Centralite) plugs are? I purchased some of the Zooz power strips that were on sale, and it worked well closer to the hub, but was extremely slow to respond, if at all, further from the hub. I have GE ZW+ wall switches all around, but when I took it to it's final resting place, it was very erratic. The hub running z-wave is on the second floor, in the middle of the house. I paired it on the first floor all the way at one end and it worked great, fast. once I moved to the basement with it, even with 4 Iris repeater outlets in varying distances from it to the hub, it became unreliable. I then turned on the z-wave radio on the hub I use on the first floor, basically directly above the strip that is in the basement, and paired the strip to this hub. It is now fairly reliable. Are the Iris repeating plugs not good at handling all of the reporting from these strips, or are they just out-dated repeaters?
Find me a ZigBee switch dimmer module and I'm there! I also prefer ZigBee but just can't seem to find many powered anything. No powered PIRs either!
O yeah I'm in the UK aswell so less chance.
So this is a good sign of not enough repeaters. Can try a repair, but what happens during inclusion is devices go into high power mode, radio signal strength is highest (also why batteries die fast when pairing)... Anyway, when it pairs, it falls back to lower power mode... And if the nearest neighbor isn't strong enough for a signal, poor performance.
Good, modern repeating devices are the critical backbone to any Z-Wave mesh network (and Zigbee too).
I was wondering about repeaters. I have several Iris plugs, and 7 GE zw+ switches. Are these both acceptable, or should I find better options? The only other zw items I use is the Zooz power strip that I just added, and a Utilitech siren, everything else is Zigbee.
It's not only the quantity, but placement. Think of it as a spider web, the repeaters have to be in between the battery devices in line of sight or at least path of best signal.
I have socket plugin repeaters for z-wave in hallways to repeat the signal to my locks. But my house is really spread out.
So, if you have the hub in the center of house, and the end device is say, 2 rooms away, line of sight, it would be best if their were at least 2 repeaters, one in each room to reach that end device best...
Again, its not a hard and fast rule, but more repeaters the better... Also, never hurts to run a z-wave repair and check logs to make sure it worked and finished.
Are your Iris plugs the v2 Centralite plugs that are Zigbee for switch control, and have the Z-Wave Plus repeater as well? If so, on Hubitat you will need to pair the Z-Wave repeater portion separately from the Zigbee pairing process. They will show up in Hubitat as a simple Z-Wave Repeater Device. On Iris, these automagically paired both the Zigbee and Z-wave portions in one step.
Yes, they are, and yes, I paired both. Both show in devices. Crazy thing is that I have one about 4 feet from the Zooz strip, and the rest are between the hub and the strip. I did use the driver from srwhite for the Iris plugs, seemed like it showed more detail, but not sure it matters. The GE switches are using native driver. I did do a zwave repair, which finished just fine.
That's just a battery button there are loads of them I want a AC powered dimmer like the Fibaro dimmer 2 and AC powered detector of which there is nothing . So the comment of there is more options for z-wave is correct.
The only AC powered detector I know of is nest protect and they don't expose the PIR part and they would be perfect.
If that’s your criterion, I cannot argue. For anything I want (which does not include an in-wall product from either of those protocols), there’s little difference. I do find it odd that there aren’t as many Zigbee choices for you in the UK, since It’s not country specific.
completely agree for something that has the same chip/ licence just a different PSU you would think there would be loads and no one seems to know about z-wave over here but they have all heard about zigbee and all they seem to do is lamps and buttons
it's just a button. I don't want battery powered devices and want to have nice looking switches not add on ugly buttons. I want my home to be smart not look smart . I have a 1880 house and I want it to look and work like a normal house but be smart all in the background. That's why Hubitat is great because i have been able to do that, I just would prefer to use more Zigbee stuff rather than z-wave (mostly for security and speed reasons)
. So the comment of there is more options for z-wave is correct.
. I have a 1880 house and I want it to look and work like a normal house but be smart all in the background. That's why Hubitat is great 
because i have been able to do that, I just would prefer to use more Zigbee stuff rather than z-wave (mostly for security and speed reasons)
