Hub Placement / Location

So I am trying to figure out the best placement for the hubitat hub in our new home. My router will be towards the back of the house somewhat center - the location is good as the middle of the house is a huge open floorplan 2 stories open. You can see all updstairs bedrooms from that location and the master is just on the otherside.

Is it bad to put the hubitat next to the router, next to the hue hub, next to the lutron smart bridge pro?

I saw another thread on this subject, but it didn't dive into any specifics and spiraled off topic.

Is there a general rule of thumb?

Central is ideal, you don't want the usb stick covered or too close to the wall. I had an issue installing HE in a family members home where I the only location available meant that I couldn't communicate with devices on the other side of the house (100+ y/o home). I used a USB extension cable to move the USB stick to an unobstructed, higher position and that solved all of my communications issues.

Also, if possible put some distance between your WIFI Router/Access point and HE as both WIFI and zigbee operate on 2.4ghz (Same goes for HUE - Both use zigbee). I haven't had any issues with proximity with the Lutron hub, but like all radio devices you should give them a little space.

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So can the Hue, HE and Lutron Hub be close by each other ...

And what is close?

I would put some distance between the HE and Hue. I personally use about a half meter...

My Asus Router (2.4 / 5 GHz) are within 18 inches of each other. Previously, my SmartThings hub was in the same location. I have never had an interference issue. Make sure your Zigbee Channel and WiFi channel are chosen to minimize overlap. Also, I like my Zigbee channel at 20 as it seems to work with the most devices (like old 1st gen ST devices.) I also now have multiple Lowes Iris 3210-L outlets spread throughout the house, as these repeat both Zigbee and Z-wave, creating a very solid mesh.

YMMV, of course.

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Ok 18" or so ... not like on different sides of the room ... that is good I was thinking I had to have things all over the place.

Currently Hue and Router are next to each other and ST is 4' away ...

My Hubitat and ST hub are around that 18" distance away from my router. It seems fine. I turned off wifi and ST when troubleshooting some distance issues and saw no improvement. It's been noted throughout the forum that the range of the z-wave/zigbee stick seems to be shorter than ST. So more repeating switches and plugs may be required.

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Call me crazy.

Never have issues though. Zigbee channel is far away from my 2.4.

I'm going to hang it on the wall soon though, I promise.

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I have always had my ST hub and now HE hub near my Wi-Fi and haven’t had any issues. I do have 2 antennas in one direction and the other 2 another direction. Since HE has mounting slots on back I did mount it to the wall. All my networking gear is under my stairs in center front of my home.

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Very helpful thank you all

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If I remember correctly ST use to have recommendations on which direction to rotate the hub that would be best for optimizing the zigbee or z-wave antenna if you wanted to minimize issues with a troublesome device to kick off the mesh's closest node. I wonder if the USB Stick has orientation optimizations?

Never heard of one, but I'm going to say stick to the left. Why? Because I have two HE hubs mounted that way and have had none of the issues with signals that others have complained about. :grin:

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No issues for me either:

This is in the stairs to the basement at the center of the house. I have a Z-Wave Plus only setup though which I'm sure helps a lot for having a strong mesh...

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I seemed to get an improvement in the ability for Z-wave devices to join when I oriented the USB dongle vertically, as shown in the pictures, rather than horizontally attached lying flat on a shelf at the center of the house.