Wifi router and hub proximity

I am waiting for my Hubitat hub to arrive. I currently have a Smartthings hub and a Hue bridge. Currently everything is well seperated - in fact in different rooms even! I have read many times it's not good to have the smartthings hub too near the wifi router. The hue setup didn't mention it being an issue, and it has to be plugged into the ethernet lan anyway.

I have learned from trial and error that my understairs cupboard has excellent reach to everywhere in the house. But it would mean all the hubs and router being close together. Is this always a no-no or is it just that some people are unlucky when their hubs object to being closer together? I'd love to have them in there together, it would also be the tidiest solution.

Both my Hubitats are within 2-3 ft of a WiFi mesh point. And I’ve had no issues with them.

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My Hubitat hub is within 2 feet of my WiFi router and has no issues. (BTW - my ST v2 hub was in the same spot and was fine as well.)

Just be sure to set the Hubitat hub's Zigbee channel to either 15 or 20 (make sure it does not conflict with your Hue bridge's Zigbee channel). Also, make sure your Router's 2.4GHz radio is using channel 1, 6, or 11. By doing these very simple steps, you can pretty much rest assured that you will not have any Zigbee/WiFi interference issues.

One more thing - please be sure to Reseve an IP address for the Hubitat Hub via your routers DHCP server settings. This really helps keep things performing well. Also, running your Hubitat Hub, Wifi Router, and Modem from a UPS is another best practice to keeping everything performing well. Power blips can be a hassle for the Hubitat hub, just like for any 'real computer'. Controlled shutdowns and reboots via the Hubitat Settings menu is always the best way to shut it down for whatever reason (e.g. moving it from one location to another.) Please do not yank the power cord like was common practice on the ST hub. The ST hub was more of a device bridge to the ST cloud than anything else. Yes, it ran some local Smart Lighting rules, but those were reloaded from the ST cloud upon each reboot. Remember, Hubitat is all local. The Hubitat Cloud is simply a way for your hub to integrate with cloud solutions, like Google Home and Amazon Alexa, as well as provide remote Dashboard access/control.

Welcome to Hubitat, @Inge_Jones!

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Same for me. Mine are all within 2 feet of the router (Orbi) without issue. When I had the Wink1 hub, it had to be in a completely different room in order to function.

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Completely agree! Note the UPS in my setup. :blush:

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Is that an Amplifi router I see there?

Looks like a Wyze Camera to me! :wink:

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Wow I see that now looking more closely at the black bit - but it's almost identical to my wifi router in form!!

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Correct! Had an extra and it fit right in! That’s actually and older pic. There are a few changes to my setup, need to take another picture, the hub side is unchanged.

It is - the Amplifi HD is larger though. Do you like your Amplifi HD? It is high on my list of consideration.

It replaced a Google Mesh system that was really weak. I'd have needed at least 6 of them to get a decent signal in all my rooms, and no signal just outside my front door where I wanted to put a Nest Hello. Amplifi is really strong and I could have got a signal all over with just the one, yet I went ahead and got two points - one for near the front door and one for near the back so as to get good outdoor coverage. I have a secondary Amplifi router as an ethernet-linked point for our loft room, but in fact I doubt it's necessary. The main down-point of the Amplifi is that you can't disable either of the band radios. That causes a lot of complaints when people are trying to set up devices that are 2.4 only, for instance, and get advice to "disable your 5ghz wifi during setup"

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That's also an issue with the Google WiFi mesh system. But it has never bothered me because I don't have that many WiFi IoT devices.

Do not buy a set. If you buy a set, and the main router dies, you can't use any of the points with another amplifi router. They are locked together and not even a hard reset will free them up to pair with another amplifi. Buy separates, it's worth the little extra cost.

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If you step up to the Unifi product line, you can create multiple WiFi networks, and assign them to each access point's radios. I recently upgrade to a Unifi Dream Machine plus 3 AP's. All WiFi related issues are gone, however it wasn't exactly cheap... It was a lot of fun learning the new system, though! :wink:

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Can you do this without running ethernet to link the points? Once upon a time, that wasn't possible. But it may be now.

As far as I am aware they are all PoE

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I bought some Unifi POE Switches and used existing Cat5e cable runs throughout the house. The WAP's are all powered via POE, although they do come with POE injectors as well. Like I said, it wasn't exactly the low cost route... :wink:

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If I was doing a remodel, I would definitely go this route. But for now, I think the Amplifi route is less cumbersome. Running ethernet between floors will not be easy in my townhouse.

If you have RG-6 coax already installed, you can use MoCA adapters. My house has coax in every room, I connected my Orbi’s together using Ethernet backhaul with Motorola MoCA adapters. Very reliable and fast!

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Updated pic with more recent additions. Swapped out 8 port switch for 16 and added a Firewalla.

Note that battery time increased, that old 8 port switch must have been power hungry!

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