A couple of years ago, I posted about my Yale YRD110/B1L deadbolts that were blowing through AA batteries in short order - Yale YRD110/B1L burns through batteries
As was suggested, I added a plug-in z-wave repeater. Maybe it was the kind of batteries I was using, but over the past year, the deadbolts have been great on batteries. They last about a year now.
So now I'm wondering if I ever needed that repeater. At the time, it seemed that no devices were pinging "through" the repeater - and now, looking at my Z-wave details, it still seems no devices are routed through the repeater. On my Z-wave details page, the repeater is node 1C. The ONLY device with "1C" in its route in the route column is that device. Nothing else routes through it.
That being the case, is it doing me any good? Should I exclude it?
The route table shows the primary route, not any of the alternate routes. Ideally, ever device will have no less than 2 neighbors that can route. Unless you can't stand the watt of electricity usage, and don't need a paperweight, I'd leave it.
I'd try moving it 20 ft from the lock, but rather similar to the hub to repeater distance, and seeing if you gain or lose. It may take months to detect since your primary measurement is battery life.
@csteele thanks for the info. I'm not worried about the electricity usage so if it's possible that it would be used as a backup route, I'm fine leaving it included and plugged in.
