I have 5 repeaters at this point in a 1400 sq ft house. The issue is the hub is in a corner with the rest of my network gear. And yeah, you know what I mean. manually alter the routing table. Tell repeaters to only talk through repeaters, etc, or tell certain repeaters to only be neighbors for stuff nearby. Right now, this repeater is going through an outlet in garage, then out to a repeater I have in my shed, then to the hub. Completely bypassing a closer repeater, and the repeater that's literally inches from the hub.
There is clearly no direct connection between this repeater and the hub. So it shouldn't be trying to send singlecast unless the Iris driver is mandating it.
Funnily, now, it appears the route it discovered results in things failing via timeout. I can see each of the packets route now, but they're taking so long to get back and forth it's just timing out.
The Mesh is expecting you to be adding devices any second. And three or four times a year, it's right. The mesh is built to create the largest sphere of reception for the Home Network Number. Which means it really prefers distance. If, during Wave repair, a 2 or more nodes report that they can 'see' node X, then all other things being equal, the most distant node will be the Router.
At the opposite extreme... if the Hub can't see any nodes, except one, and it reports it can see many more, then obviously that device is going to be a practical center of the mesh instead of the Hub. The Hub's radio need only be as 'strong' as that first hop. If that first hop is 200' away, and all the other devices are 250', but because of walls etc. the radio's only good to 210', then all devices will be routed via that single repeater. I'm NOT suggesting this is a good mesh, just that it could/should be functional.
So that's interesting since I've read that you generally WANT a repeater close to the hub so that the hub can offload onto it (so the hub can just send it along, and vise versa). Acts like a buffer of sorts. But what you're saying makes sense, why would a device talk to that repeater when it could talk to the hub. So is that not the case?
You need a repeater within the sphere of the RF from the Hub. The first 'ring' so to speak. Next to it? within a foot? No.
I got a new hub a while back with the idea of splitting a bunch of the ZWave devices in and around the 'front' of my home to the new Hub. That meant I had to build a new mesh just for that new Hub. I started with an Aeon SmartSwitch6 that is about 8 ft below and about 9 ft horizontally. Pythagoras says that's about 12 ft away, but through a floor/ceiling and a couple walls. It wasn't reliable. So next I turned to my Garage Door Opener because it's literally 8 ft below the new Hub. It paired easily and became the first repeater in the new mesh. I got to about 16 devices and that GDO was the repeater for at least 9 of the devices.
So yes, there are circumstances when a Repeater that at first seems 'too close' does what the mesh needs. But in my imaginary understanding of the Mesh, I'd say ...
...is too close to be useful because the RF range for the two are virtually identical. Moving it 8 ft means it's building an 8ft larger sphere and that satisfies a component of the algorithm.
I have a related question. If the regular Z-Wave repair utility changes all the routes to accommodate how close the mesh is to the router, then why is it that they want you to pair from the closest to the router to the farthest. Surely the entire mesh route gets changed with the Z-Wave repair. Are they saying to do that simply because of network-wide inclusion not being a feature on many devices?
That's just good practice in building a mesh network. It is almost never explicitly "required" (especially if you do repairs at the right times) to do it that way, though.
It just doesn't work the other way... if you have a Hub that because of your specific set of walls and "RF reduction objects" has an RF sphere of say 50'. Now you want to add a device that's In-Wall about 70' away. How can that work? You must build outwards. You don't have to fully build 'ring1' before any 'ring2'. You can install a routing device at 50' in this scenario and then add the 70' one, assuming the 50' device is on the path towards the 70' device.
Looking at the above closer, the imaginary hub has a 50' RF sphere, and then a device is added at that 50' mark. BUT that device has it's own RF sphere... and it's certainly possible that IT's RF sphere is only 45'. Thus that device won't Join in-place and will be flakey at best.
Each device has two spheres in reality.. it's receive sensitivity 'sphere' as well as it's transmit power sphere. Ideally one would want the receive sphere to be equal to or larger than the transmit.
Goes for Humans too.. they should Listen better than they speak.
The point I think I was making is.. as a REPEATER, it's not helping inches away. If it's more than a repeater, great, use it. Devices work inches away, the repeating portion isn't helpful at that distance.
This topic is about Repeaters, so naturally I completely ignored USING a device
Pairing from the center outwards just means that you start with devices that have the most reliable chance of communicating. If you start with the furthest away, would they always reliably communicate? With an ideal large open space and no walls, starting randomly wouldn't matter.
During a repair, the hub asks each device what devices that device can communicate with. It uses that information to build the routing tables. Routes can and likely will change throughout the day. RF conditions within a structure frequently change. The microwave starting, the refrigerator, the AC, furnace, lights and who knows what else will all influence the best communication path between devices. The hub will alter the route it uses based on current conditions.
fwiw, moved hub about a week ago, and it's been great ever since. Had to buy a switch (USW-Flex) to put in the closet for power and network, but after a z-wave repair (or two) and waiting for explorer frames, everything seems to be working very very well.
Yup, long story short, do try to put hub in middle of home.
Haven't had a chance to fire zniffer back up again and see if things look reasonable as far as routing.
has an RF sphere of say 50'. Now you want to add a device that's In-Wall about 70' away. How can that work? You must build outwards. You don't have to fully build 'ring1' before any 'ring2'. You can install a routing device at 50' in this scenario and then add the 70' one, assuming the 50' device is on the path towards the 70' device.
