New To Hubitat: Zigbee Issues

I got a Hubitat a week or so ago and I have a couple of Hampton Bay Fan Canopy controllers that are wink(Zigbee) compatible.

I have only been able to pair with them if they are very close to the hub. Like in the same room and within 5 to 10 feet of the hub. Even then, I moved the hub a couple of feet and it had a hard time connecting to the already paired device. Forget about trying to connect to a canopy controller in another room.. It will not do it

Before I had done this, I had already done a hard(factory) reset.

I turned off my 2.4 wifi so that there should be no interference that way.

Any thoughts here? I know these things are supposed to be in a mesh network, but this seems a bit crazy that it is having a hard time connecting from such a short distance... If this is a lemon what kind of distance should I expect out of the hub.

Its more than likely not the hub, it's the fan controllers. These fan controllers have awful radios in them.

I have found that I have to have the antenna (looks like a "T") outside of the fan canopy.

These devices need a strong mesh and you will also need a zigbee repeater in each room that the fan controller is in. All of my in-wall switches are Zwave so I use these for repeaters.

https://www.amazon.com/Sylvania-Smart-Home-72922-LIGHTIFY/dp/B01M6UM8QD/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=lightify+smart+plug&qid=1588430602&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFFMzBXNExNN1FaMU8mZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTAxMTExMjgzMVpLTU00V1BQWDNPJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA1NjcyMzEzSTMzVDBUSk1ZN1ZTJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

Some in this community and in the smartthings community have had success by changing the antenna with a better one.

Even with a strong mesh, the fan controller that I have in the same room as my hub will still occasionally drop and I will have to power cycle the device at the breaker to get it back. I plan to eventually try changing the antenna unless I find a better solution first. Surprisingly, the controller in our bedroom farther away going through walls hardly ever drops off of the network.

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I changed the antenna, and have had no drop off since. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the process, but it was simply removing a couple screws and swapping the antenna.

Supposedly they have changed the antenna design, you may have to pull the device out of the canopy to see if you can replace the antenna. On my (older?) design, there was no glue and nothing above the antenna connection. Supposedly with the newer design where they glued the antenna and maybe have some type of additional circuit above the antenna?

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Would you mind giving me a link to the replacement antennas you chose?

They are in the link above.

Yeah, found it after I sent the question

If I understand the text of your post, the antenna that you liked the best was this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077SVP7PN

Is that correct?

Yes, that is the one. There may be other styles that work too, I just tried to find the antenna with the highest gain, and these two were a couple that fit that requirement.