There wouldn't be anything in the engineering logs, as the radio and the hub are working properly. Those logs are useful when either the radio isn't working (accompanied by radio offline alerts), or the hub is not working properly (accompanied by various alert messages). Other than that Logs have more meaningful data than what engineering logs might reveal.
Maybe the person who sold it did so because there’s something wrong with that individual unit?
Do you know if the internal antenna in your unit is attached ok, or not otherwise damaged?
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I wouldn't know without opening it up. Is there any easy way to open it and check? Is the antenna on these printed on the PCB or is it a separate antenna with a connector? I'm willing to check...
It was completed and had an OK status at one point. then it stopped responding and I tried to do a repair. after the repair completed that's the status it had, I've tried to refresh as well. Also for some odd reason. the back patio switch is routing through the front porch switch even though the hub is closer to the back patio than the front porch switch is. This confirms to me that its a range issue. The front porch switch can see the back patio switch better than the hub can and those switches are about 100ft apart on opposite sides of the house.
This.
Here's a few pics.
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As someone who make a living designing circuit boards, I'm left wondering why Hubitat won't go with a better antenna design. Obviously to me, there is a huge variation in quality among Hubs. Lots of people complaining about the range sucking the life out of them and others saying they "don't know what the hell anyone's talking about, everything's perfect..."
Obviously there is an issue or we wouldn't be here asking for help. Z-wave is supposed to be easy, and it usually is with other controllers. I'm going to open it up and take a look and see if something is wrong with the antenna.
There are 4 sticky pads on the bottom. Underneath those are 4 phillips screws. Take those out and the two halves of the shell come apart. The antennas are attached to the lid and the motherboard sandwiches between the two halves of the shell. There are two radios and two antennas. The one closest to the ethernet port is the zigbee radio and the other is the zwave radio.
The center pin of the antenna and one ground should be soldered. Factory solder jobs are pretty heavy on the solder but should look pretty tidy. The solder is lead free solder so you need pretty high temps to remove it cleanly. If the hub was messed with in any way it will probably be pretty apparent as most people are pretty bad at soldering small components.
Post some pics of the antenna solder joints and we can tell pretty easily if that is the issue. Try to zoom in as close as you can to the center pin specifically. A small batch of the early models had issues with the center pin breaking as well as very fragile usb ports.
If there is a soldering issue or antenna issue I can repair it pretty easily. Even upgrade it to externals if you want just cover shipping and parts. I can even send you a shipping label too to save some time.
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I appreciate the offer, but I can take care of any repairs myself. I design and assembly circuit boards for rapid prototyping, I have hot air rework and reflow equipment and I'm not to shabby with an iron. All I use is lead free so that won't be too difficult for me. I'll pop it open but I'm willing to bet money I don't find anything. I have a decision to make though, do I want to keep tinkering with Hubitat or keep the Zooz USB stick and just go full HA running on the Pi3 that I already have running for my Vivint integration right now. I don't use Zigbee so I am less concerned about that capability. I have 3 more switches waiting to be installed but none of them are going to be any closer to the hub unfortunately.
Np, you should be good to go then. It's pretty easy to repair if you know what you're doing. The range on stock antennas isn't great but definitely shouldn't be anything like what you're seeing. WIth externals, I'm pretty much direct to everything minus a few switches hiding behind a fireplace. HA is pretty fun but it also takes a lot more tinkering to keep everything happy. I think once you get the antenna bit sorted you'll be good.
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Here are pics of the solder jobs on the antennas. that one seems a little sketchy but maybe its not that bad? maybe it worth moving the center conductor over a tad?
Yea or at least reflow the solder so the center pin wire is in it instead of on top of it. I can't zoom in enough to see if the pads are bridged but might want to soak up a bit of that solder too just to make sure. Like I mentioned before they go heavy on the solder on these so that might be the case here.
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Yea, looks like there might be a thousandth or two between the ground pad and center pin pad but with the angle and it being too blurry it's hard to tell for sure. I'd at a minimum use a continuity tester between the two and see if they're bridged.
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I put it under my digital microscope. doesn't look bridged.
I went ahead and re-soldered it anyways. Not my best work but it was quick.
Now to test it. I don't think it's going to make a difference but I would be happy to be wrong.
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Alright. Here is where I'm at currently:
Clicked repair and got this:
Stage: Idle
Finished Z-Wave Network Repair
Failed Nodes: 06 07
Excluding doesn't work. They don't pick up at all during the process.
Anyone want to buy a Hub?
Air gap the devices and the run the repair. When failed shows up click remove. Once they are removed, run zwave exclude on both devices. After that pair one device back and if successful, pair the other one.
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Also dont move your hub to the device. See if it will pair in place.
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One more thing, try changing your zwave channel to 20 before you pair the devices back.
How do you change the Z-wave channel?
