Here is our situation, we have 35+ Yale YRL going in a two-story office building (11,000sq ft/5,500 per floor), all battery operated, security does not have to be SCI level, but we don't want local script-kiddy messing with the locks because he/she wanted to play around. All are z-wave and new, never paired. A have a few questions;
Considering Battery of these three;
A. Hub Mesh (enabled) will use the most but is required for our situation.
B. S2 is the default (zwave frequency encryption and required for zwave security) and will use a little more power.
C. LockCode encryption is not required and encrypts the code logs on the HA/lock but if enabled, will it use a "little bit more" battery.
D. What are we missing that could contribute to bettering the battery life?
No reason we couldn't pair all of the locks at the hub, then run and install the lock to its associated door, giving the Z-Wave mesh time to establish itself isn't an issue as we will program the codes upon pairing.
Not a question but a statement, we went with ZW vs ZG because each office has their own Wifi, thus think of it x2 because they will have 2g and 5g going, thus ZW would have less interference...
If needed we will place repeaters in locations that has weat signal post ZW mesh establishment.
Thank you for the input! Hence we are considering a second hub, one for the first floor and one for the second, but we wanted to see if the Mesh Network will be able to handle it. The layout is a large center hallway on both floors and a very clear view for most locks to each other but it's a wait-and-see.
How do you plan on mounting the hubs in the space?
A. We are thinking of either the center of the hall above the ceiling tile on the second floor or on the wall near the ceiling on the first floor. The issue is the first floor has original pressed tin tile, which might interfere.
How will you be using these locks? Controlling them or eventing etc?
A1. To update (add/remove) codes for tenants and their employees.
A2. Codes for Fire Department/Police/Plumber/Electric/Handman (These are one-time but updated occasionally.)
B1. To be able to report on usage as needed. Maybe month/quarterly reporting.
B2. Four of the locks will be for restrooms, so we need to know which tenants have the highest usage
B3. In case a tenant has employees for them to know if/when that employee used it (more for special situations of something comes up missing in the tenants' office, we can track who came in last and the time.)
C. Two of the lock Front/Back Door are "Event" related, being "time base lock/unlock" to automatically open/close at Xam and Xpm.
Can we assume you looked at solutions like Yale Accentra and would rather do it yourself? It's not my intent to confuse matters or take you away from the Hubitat solution. That said a commercial solution for managing credentials can potentially save you support time and reduce your risk of very real safety and security issues not to mention good will etc.
If I was setting up one of my buildings with 25 tenants I would use a purpose built solution. Something that managed the credentials and allowed tenants to manage their own one time use codes etc for guests or staff etc.
A commercial solution is also going to support things like mag lock panic bars and access key pads.
Thanks for the advice and it was considered, but the client (a friend) is on a shoestring budget, ~$6,000 budget, going to Accentra would be $15,000+ immediately. Because we are a dealer, we got the YRL at $150 vs $350+ for each lock for commercial solutions, plus wiring, plus cloud cost. Thus, here we are... This was a venture we took on as a test bed but also win-win potential to test the limits of prosumer vs commercial solution. For large commercial solutions or million-dollar homes, $40,000 is reasonable but for small-town office that's an impossible situation.
Well, it's actually more "open" than most houses are because it's a big centralized hall and all offices are viewable "down the hall", so it should be actually better than a home, which have many walls and potentially a "maze" between livingroom, to kitchen, to bedroom, to garage, etc. etc. Hence my reply to JumpJump being this is a job for a client that is a friend who know they are a test buddy and we will see how it all works out.
Ok, I get it now. I wouldn't underestimate the potential resource and insurance costs/risks of managing access with a diy hub. Also, consider code. I don't know where you are, but local code needs to be met for safety and fire. I wouldn't do it.
Take a look at Ubiquiti access. I'd personally switch to mag locks/electric strikes with any of the other keypad/swipe/card/mobile solutions.
Thanks and will check it out. The current situation is key locks, which tenants forget to lock, local codes has nothing about this and for that matter, this brings tech to the area that the locals want. (Think small town of less than 5,000) with rents as low as $195/month for office space that includes everything… so a $30k system would take years to recoup and couldn’t be justified.
I really can't add much, but I do think that a pressed tin ceiling is probably going to cause you some issues. Someone else may have more insight, but I think that alone will necessitate 2 hubs, and you will likely need to wall-mount the first-floor hub. A few years ago I made the mistake of putting a hub on a metal monitor riser, and that completely killed the mesh. I would also suspect you might need at least a couple of repeaters on each floor, particularly to help out the furthest locks from the hubs.
I would save your money and get the hub and a single lock to ensure you can complete a POC before getting everything.
One good thing is that since you were able to become a dealer you should have the Zwave 700 series module instead of the 500. S2 is basically AES256 encryption so inline with most highish security setups.
Zwave repeater devices (meaning most plugged in devices) will be a requirement. You will want several per floor probably to ensure a good mesh. You don't want to do just one to extend then range you need to provide multiple paths to ensure reliability. Even then it may not work 100% of the time.
Atleast on the Zwave 500 Module battery life has been found to in some cases to be related to how well the device connects to the zwave network. Batteries draining fast could be a sign of a week zwave connection.
Don't underestimate the impact of wifi can have on itself. If you have 30+ wifi networks in close proximity it can cause problems to. You mway find it works better with a few good AP's and WiFI isolation to prevent tenets from seeing each other. The best option may be to simply have Ethernet in each office. It will be faster then Wifi and not suffer interference from other devices in the building.
Liking keys at this price point. Consider keys and switching to the wifi/bluetooth modules and letting the tenant self manage their lock (or stick with keys). This would substantially lower long term care and feeding costs.
I agree... All of the Yale have Keys, but Keys are backup in a sense, the Client has had to deal with tenant's "lost" keys, forgotten keys and lock the keys inside the office "can you come down to the office and open my door?" when he's 30-45 minutes away.
We considered the Wifi/BLE route and, honestly, may still take that route. We know that if we can make the ZW route work/connect, the codes can be hosted in each lock, and the locks can host 250 codes, so the item behind this is to eliminate the "cloud" route with other systems.
and we will see how it all works out.
