Adding Aeotec Range Extenders has made my BE469 and FE599 locks reliable

Sadly, after adding 3 Aeotec repeaters my locks are still flakey, freeze my hub for a few minutes, and fall off the network randomly. :frowning:

How have you positioned the repeaters? Close to the locks? Close to the hub?

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You have clicked the Z-Wave repair button and waited several hours for the neighbor tables to update?

Yep. 1 repeater 2-3 feet from the hub. The other repeaters as close as possible to the locks. The one lock that falls off the most is about 4 feet from the repeater along the same wall with no obstructions or objects between them. I even had my Wink hub set up as a repeater for a while and that didn’t help. I really think it’s an issue with the code within the hub or the driver based on all of my testing, but I can’t get anyone to believe me. So I’ll just have to live with it unfortunately. :confused:

Yep. And per recommendation from @waynespringer79 I waited a few days after all that,along with a full reboot and shutdown, unplug for 20 seconds, etc. it’s now been a few days and the locks still fall off occasionally or freeze my entire z-wave network for a few minutes when I run rules associated with the locks.

Sometimes unplugging and plugging the batteries back in fixes it. But tonight the locks are running so poorly that even a z-wave repair and unplugging and plugging the batteries back in won’t get the lock to work. I give up. :frowning:

Just to be sure, these locks have been excluded from the Wink hub and the Wink hub was unplugged while you were joining the locks to HE? You did a factory reset on the locks after excluding from HE? There are no other hubs in your home powered up that were connected to the locks previously?

Did you notice any improvement at all when you paired these repeaters? The reason I ask, is for me and (I believe) the same for @aaiyar, each time a repeater was added, a significant improvement was instantly noticed. I'll admit just one was an "improvement" but didn't solve the issue, once I got to 3 it did seem to solve it (for me) and now with 4 I haven't had a single issue with either problem lock.

I do believe you, I've witnessed this first hand for 2 months straight......there IS an issue whether be a driver can fix, or a different zwave radio is needed in the hubs that better amplifies the signal to wake them up for "Secure" devices

The whole premise of the repeaters/AMPLIFIERS isn't to "be the solution" but be a band-aid work around.

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Yes. 100%

Yes. Factors reset. Exclude and then include.

Correct. On Monday I removed the Wink hub from my HE and unplugged it when my 3rd repeater arrived.

I do appreciate the suggestions however.

I would suggest try putting them halfway between the hub and the locks.

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If you did it in this order, you may have ghost devices and that will cause havoc. Just to confirm, you excluded first, then factory reset, then Include?

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After I get some rest I’ll probably consider buying one more repeater. I’ve already spent so much time and money on this, what’s another $25 :smiley:

Also, I should have been more clear - I know you guys believe me, which actually alleviates my frustration and makes me feel a bit less crazy :slight_smile: I meant getting support to believe me. That said, again, I am a BIG fan overall of Hubitat. Hopefully some day I can figure this issue out.

Wild guess, did you exclude the Wink hub before removal?

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Yes. Here was the exact process.

  1. exclude from Wink
  2. factory reset
  3. include into Hubitat

Since then the locks have sometimes worked for a few days and sometimes stopped working for a few days. I’ve done multiple excludes, resets, includes, in every combination I can think of.

For a while I at least got to a point where the locks would work 90% or the time if I didn’t use any rules associated with them. But tonight having my lock just completely fall off again (new batteries as of last week - fresh pack) is leaving me disheartened.

Not to worry. I'm new here and have had several problems that needed help. Lots of very knowledgeable people here willing to help.

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Yep - I appreciate the guesses however. I’m not trying to be difficult or anything.

A good suggestion. The lock that gives me the most trouble (that always worked on Wink, like yours did too :)) is in a detached garage 22 feet from the back of my house. Here is what is between my Hub and that lock, in order of distance.

  1. Aeotec repeater
  2. Enerwave z-wave plus in-wall relay switch
  3. Enerwave z-wave plus smart plug
  4. Inovelli z-wave plus smart plug (in the very back corner of the house as close to the garage as possible)

Then in the garage I have another Inovelli z-wave plus plug (had since my Wink days) and another Aeotec repeater.

I recognize that a zwave signal can only hop 4 times I believe, so I don’t think that the lock commands are going in a linear path along those repeaters/plugs. And I’ve run multiple zwave repairs on this mesh for good measure.

Since migrating to Hubitat, over time I’ve added everything except the two Inovelli repeaters hoping that they would improve my mesh and resolve my issues. No luck so far.

I’ll try some more test ideas tomorrow and maybe buy a 4th repeater for my tiny house. Again, I appreciate the suggestions.

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Any luck with trying to use a local trigger instead?

Thank you for checking in! I set it up per our chat:

  • Virtual switch, controlled via cloud end point with a simple trigger rule. Virtual switch turns on, then after 3 seconds virtual turns off.
  • 2nd RM trigger tells the 2 locks to unlock when the virtual switch is turned on.

When I set it up like this, if the locks are triggered at the same time then the z-wave network freezes for 3-5 minutes just like before.

So, I set a 4 second delay between the locks which seemed to help but after a day one of the locks fell off the network again.

I just added a 4th repeater yesterday, hopefully this will be the final nail in this solution. :slight_smile:

I now have 1 repeater next to the hub and 1 repeater within 3-5 feet of each lock. I have loads of other beaming repeaters throughout the house and garage. If this doesn't solve it, I'm at a loss of what to try next, so my fingers are crossed!

Right on, good luck!

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UPDATE 5/28/19: After adding a total of 4 strategically placed Aeotec Range Extenders, I have zero reliability issues with all 3 of my Schlage BE469 Zwave Locks for more than a week straight.

Yesterday I decided to perform testing on these locks that I've previously described their locations/current repeaters/problems in the above posts. I decided to Exclude and remove the 2 problem locks and try to "pair in place" including them after adding the extenders.

One of the 2 I was successful and did not have to remove the lock from the door at all (which I had to previously) and it included with no issues at all. as well as adding lock codes from lock code manager from.

The other of the 2 (the farthest one away) I was "kinda" able to pair in place....Hubitat "found" the lock but apparently during the configure process something would not complete and the lock kept giving a red X, instead of the Green Check on the inclusion process, but HE DID actually "find" the device this was not possible at this location pre-extender adds. After bringing the lock closer to fully include I then put back in place and used lock code manager to create lock codes, and haven't had any communication issues since yesterday.

Side note there were a few zwave repairs ran during this process, and I will probably add at more repeaters until I get the ALL locks to pair in place, as these truly do amplify the zwave signal, so adding them can only help my mesh anyway. Prior to this testing I was in the camp of "I would never buy those as they don't perform any other function, and devices that do perform others repeat also" Camp.....After using I'm a strong believer that all zwave meshes should have these now.

@bobbyD, @patrick, @mike.maxwell Something to take note of. The lock that would not fully pair in place, during this process the "exclude" function of the hub would NOT reach the same distance that the "include" function did when it would find the device. Each time I had to bring the lock back by the hub to "exclude it" but the "include it" would find the device at it's location Also, each time I had this failure seldom could I just start trying to repeat the process and re-include again (at it's use location), WITHOUT first doing a hub shutdown and power cycle. The inclusion would fail everytime I tried to repeat the process, UNTIL I preformed the power cycle then everytime it would find the device during the inclusion process (at it's use location)

Something about after trying to pair these locks appear to really weaken the zwave radio signal from the hub, and power cycling the hub almost always fixes this.

Just my observation and test methods I felt like sharing, take them at your will

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