I just started setting up my first Hubitat hub. It is inside a big 42u insulated cabinet with metal sides, top, back door, and glass front door. The house is 2 stories and the rack is on the bottom floor centrally located behind the stairs in what I call the "tech closet".
About 20 feet away on the same floor, through the stairs and drywall, I was able to connect one Inovelli Red Series Dimmer. I cannot get any dimmers upstairs to connect, the closest being nearly directly on top of the "tech closet". I also tried a dimmer that is directly upstairs from the one connected dimmer downstairs. In between the two floors is double 5/8" drywall, about 8" of insulation, some dead space, 23/32" plywood subfloor, foam insulation, a second layer of 23/32" subfloor, fiberglass backerboard, then tile floor. (no squeaks here...)
I really would like to keep the hub organized in the rack, especially since I just bought a rackmount for it. Do you think the metal rack is what is causing me to have such a weak Z-wave signal? Or is it the building? If it is the rack, I am considering doing (or having someone do) the external antenna mod and putting antennas on the side of the rack near the top, that would at least get them outside of the shell.
Would putting a repeater in the tech closet outside of the rack improve the signal enough upstairs to start adding devices?
In the mean time, I think I will move the hub outside of the rack to see how it works from there. I was hoping I could get some input on long term solutions though.
My hub is in our master bedroom closet which is full of Container Store Elfa metal shelving. I did the antenna mod and it made a big difference. I also moved the hub away from all my other electronics on the electronic shelf to cut down on RF interference.
Because you seem to want your hub inside a Faraday cage, may I suggest that you do something similar to the Lewis Heidrick (@lewis.heidrick) External Antenna mod and, instead of mounting the antenna on the case of the hub, mount the antenna on the rack case, with coax between a connector on the hub case and the antenna. Be aware, though, that each connector in the RF path, and any significant coax length, can attenuate the RF signal.
Best, though, would be to use the standard External Antenna mod and put the hub on top of the rack cabinet or mount it to the wall using one of the 3D printed hub mounts that you can find in this forum.
Well, I moved the hub to the top of the faraday cage(my rack) and saw no difference. None of my Inovelli dimmers up stairs will pair and all show a red indicator doing their little "z-wave range check". Downstairs dimmers connect without issue.
I am starting to feel like I am doing something wrong, I can't imagine a hub can't send z-wave straight up to the second floor, a total distance of probably 10-12'.
I do have a second c-7 available. How difficult is it to connect this one upstairs to create a z-wave mesh, assuming I have an open network port upstairs?
