I didn't find any on spec quality zwave antennas. Ideally you'd want one with a 920 center channel, but a LoRa antenna might cover those frequencies since it's center channel is 915.
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No worries, I might see if RS or E14 have anything that meets those specs.
I cant find a 5db 900mhz antenna on amazon.ca only 9db. I have a long one story home so figure 5db would be better from what @lewis.heidrick said.
found one but was trying to stay away from china shipping:
Just got this done today. 2 hrs later I went from 20 direct to 28 direct (out of 39). The biggest difference is the RTT all seem to be much lower. Looking forward to see what happens in the next week.
Thanks for everyone contributing.
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I suspect you'll end up around 9/10ths of them direct connected... Most people always have a couple of devices for whatever reason like to route through something.
A 9dbi antenna will be great for a one story home... better than a 5dbi antenna.
Ooops. Just realized that the 9dbi antenna you are looking at is a dual-band antenna. So you really don't know what the gain will be at 900mhz. Try to find a single band 900mhz antenna.
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Now up to 35 of 39 direct connected. Huge difference in under a day for me.
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@lewis.heidrick here is the shopping list will these work?
I wouldn't use a dual band antenna.
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what about this list:
The techtoo seems ok for 2.4 but the second one is another dual band antenna for 900 and 2.4.
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This should be in the user manual...thanks for the pictures, made it easy to understand the pattern info.
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One other thing to watch for... If you get an RP-SMA antenna, you need to get the rp-sma to u.fl pigtail.
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Soooo. This thread has had a lot interest and a lot of HE Users have successfully added an external antenna with very positive results. It is clear that the C7 hub design emphasized Form over Function. Do you think there will be a C7+ hub released with external antennas????
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I'm not positive that's the correct conclusion to take from this topic.
First, the participants are self selected. People decide if they have the skills or can find someone to have the skills (@lewis.heidrick, tv repair shop, etc) to do the modification. It's a 'brave lot' to risk their functioning hub on a whim.
Second, I read this and see incremental improvement. Nothing I read is in the OMG category 
Myself, I had a good working hub before, and after. No change at all, BUT there are numbers to indicate a measurable improvement. More direct communications, true. I have no doubt that "Improvement" is the right label, but I see very little that might achieve a "Dramatic Improvement" label.
Third, there's also evidence that the internal antenna is just mis-oriented for some households. The external antenna makes it extremely easy to move the antenna for a better coverage in that specific house, with the devices scattered in that specific pattern. Moving the hub is not at all as easy as moving a rubber ducky antenna.
Fourth, the physical size of the external antenna vs the potential for a larger antenna within the Hub. Double the length of the antenna thereby using up more of the internal lid space would be a lot easier (aka $$) than external antenna options in production.
Thus I posit that form was not emphasized over function. I imagine they had a good RF engineer (consultant, I presume) that created a good antenna. But Hubitat surpassed "good" a few years ago.. we want better. I think the next hub might have a better antenna... but external??
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Yes please. External could come with a smaller less obtrusive but probably still better option. Then the option to orient it properly becomes very simple. Wifi routers employ this exact same approach and they are doing the same thing. Then if someone wants to extend the antenna or change it...it's very simple.
For me, this really was in the OMG category. BUT I've struggled with zwave since the start and it almost made me give up (back in the ST days). Zigbee saved the day for me. Again I'm all too aware that some work better than others depending on each situation (house/construction/etc) and I struggle more than most with aluminum siding. I've been slowly, and at a great cost, moving away from zwave. I have a box full of zwave equipment I have eliminated because it just wasn't reliable...in my house.
I'm hoping this simple/inexpensive hack prevents me from wanting to eliminate more. So far in a few days going from 20 directly connected devices to 37 directly connected devices is for sure in the OMG category for me, that's out of 39 total zwave at this point. I have 66 zigbee, plus many of my caseta switches (which mostly replaced the zwave ones).
From a hub manufacturers standpoint I completely understand not going crazy with an antenna. I mean...they are mesh networks right? There really is no NEED as long as you have more mains powered devices in your house. Then you can keep that simple sleek little box. However...this really could be yet another area where HE stands out from the crowd. And...with little added expense. If they did do a two hub route (one with and one without external) I'd be very curious to know how many go the ext route and what it would really cost on top of the internal one.
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Also update...rebooted after updating today....I'm at 100% directly connected to my hub. After doing this mod I have 0 devices repeating. 39/39 directly connected to my hub. I got confused at first when I went into Z-wave mesh details and the whole repeating panel was missing. I thought there was an issue with the app after the update. I guess if you have no repeaters...there's no need for the list.
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The "topic" of this entire post (see my original post) was to encourage Hubitat to implement external antennas. And I believe that within this post is ample evidence that the use of external antennas does improve the performance of networks. In the hundreds of posts in this thread, I don't think I have seen a single neutral/negative result or regret in having an external antenna.
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External would allow for options a little stubby one for people that don't need the range and the connector available for those that could benefit from a different radiation pattern from a different antenna.
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