I recently added a Ring Range Extender due to the many positive comments on it as a repeater. I've had it in three places over the past couple of weeks and in that entire time I've had one one single device route through it, and that was temporary. Currently nothing is using it. It just sits there, eating my electricity and doing whatever repeaters do when they have nothing to do. (Watch "Big Bang" reruns?)
On the other hand, (or should I say "In the other corner...") I have a Hank Z-Wave Plus plug. (I know, marketing had a three martini lunch the day they were naming it, it's not Hank's fault!) It has seven - SEVEN - devices routing through its 100kbps connection to my hub. It sits on the same wall within 3' of the Ring. And to tell the sorry final truth, the Ring Extender is one of the seven devices routing through the Hank plug.
So I just want to make a proud shout-out to the good ol' Hank Plug, tireless and little praised (until now) repeater who just could, and just does. Maybe not so strong on racy lines and sexy design, but shows up every day ready to work.
Haha my Ring repeater is just as useless despite my best efforts to find a sweet spot around house. My devices seem to prefer my 2 nameless Aeotecs instead.
#1 - 14 devices route through it (including most of the other ring extenders) #2 - 1 #3 - 0 #4 - 5 #5 - 0 #6 - 1
So other than #1 and #4, the rest don't do a whole lot. Guess I bought too many. I was optimistic @bcopeland would allow us to set application priority routes manually at some point, and I would force more things through them. Oh well, they look nice at least. lol
Yea, I’ve got 5 Ring v2 and only 20 Z-Wave devices (all plus except one) including the Ring. The most recent Ring v2 has 12 neighbors but nothing routes through it. Almost directly a floor below, I have a USB-powered Zooz ZSE18 Motion Sensor with 15 neighbors, and 11 of them route through it; it’s like sugar attracting flies.
I think I’m going to move the Ring V2 to a weaker area of the house.
With 2.2.4.153 and 2.2.4.156, I am seeing real mesh repair and self-routing in the background as everything sits. Lots of route optimization, and my devices have never been faster.
I was hoping the same thing. I would like to get all access control devices routing only through the Ring repeaters so that they would still be monitored in the event of mains power loss.
Well, I could accomplish the same thing if all mains-powered devices had a parameter that would turn off repeater ability. The only mains-powered Z-Wave devices in the house, other than that Zooz motion sensor, which is being replaced, are GE/Jasco Smart Motion devices running your very nice component driver. If I could only make them stop repeating with some parameter ....
But I realize that’s against the Z-Wave philosophy of building a strong mesh.
Devices generally only change routes if the route they are using starts having problems...
so, one thing you can try if you like to tinker is power off or air gap the switch you don't want to be the repeater and then force or wait for the devices that were using it to send some messages to the hub.
That is turning out to be the silver lining and main reason I will still find it useful.
Tried several locations as I noted and no one wants to play with it. I'm going to plut it into the same circuit as my hub is on, and use it for power notifications.
Forgot to mention this - cracks me up, because my wife actually said "Oh that one looks nice." when I unboxed it. It's definitely prettier than Hank.
Same, and that is a really nice improvement.
I think the lesson learned for me is when we go through our upcoming remodel and expansion, I'm going to be dropping a Hank or two in the new areas. Added benefit, every time I say its name I smile.
@danabw on the Hank plug topic. They also do a great job of power reporting when using the Zooz Power Switch driver. I've got a combo of the Hank model you linked to and this one that uses the same driver and is a bit more attractive.
That monoprice one is the same as the ?discontinued? Zooz Zen06 as well - I guess they are both just some rebranded Chinese model. Just be careful what you plug into it.
@danabw Send me your old Ring Repeater. I need to do some testing with one. You guys must have mansions. I'm in a 1 story 3400 sq/ft house and just about everything connects directly.
My house has plastered walls (Plaster on top of Sheetrock). Really kills my Wifi, and I suspect it must have an impact on Zigbee (and maybe also Z-Wave?). I have a bunch of Inovelli switches that act as Z-Wave repeaters, and Sinope Zigbee thermostats that act as Zigbee repeaters...
Nope just a 130 yr old 3200 sqft frankenhouse - started as a small cottage that kept being added on to over the decades. When we redid our upstairs we found most of the original cedar roof inside our ceiling.. along with some budweiser cans from the 70s and a single oversized truss running the wrong way. We have a mixture of plaster / sheet rock / brick / concrete block and god knows what else - wire lath etc. Fortunately the knob and tube was replaced a while ago.
I was optimistic 
