I have a C7 and (2) zooZ ZSE43 tilt sensors that I intended to use for garage door monitoring on my iPhone. I've got everything set up and operating with the sensors ~6' from the C7 and in the same room. I installed the sensors on my garage doors (luckily with Velcro) and everything went bad. The path from the C7 and the closest garage door (steel) sensor is ~25' with a drywall wall and the steel house/garage man door pretty much in line. The distance between the garage door sensors is ~30'. I can move either sensor to ~45' away from the C7 while maintaining LOS and they operate correctly. The C7 is 2' from my WiFi router.
Do I need to add a repeater in the garage as close to the C7 as possible?
Does the C7 know when a sensor is out of range or unable to communicate? I haven't really seen any indication of that other than the dashboard not displaying the correct status. Who initiates the communications, the C7 or the sensor? Does the sensor only communicate on change of status?
Can someone explain the Z-Wave topology display to me? The one with the 01/0A/0B grid with the red and blue squares.
It's hard to believe that it's a real topology map, but the meaning is... can the Hub (01) connect with devices? AND can the device connect to the Hub?
In this example, blue horizontally and vertically means: Yes, the hub can converse with device 20 and device 20 can converse with the hub.
In this example, Device 09 has no connection any other device. It cannot be used as a Hop.
Kinda sorta. It definitely knows the last time it heard from the sensor. I use Device Watchdog to monitor all of my devices and alert me when one hasn't been heard from in a while. But there's not a way to write a rule that says "if this sensor loses communications do X, Y, Z."
It depends. Commands sent to a switch or a thermostat are initiated by the hub. An event like a contact sensor opening or a thermostat reading a certain temperature are initiated by the device.
No, most battery operated sensors have a check-in period as well as listening for commands.
It would certainly help to have a mains powered device closer to the sensors, either in the garage or right inside the house. My EcoLink sensor is currently routing through the ZEN16 which is in the garage also and opens/closes the door. The mains powered devices seems to have better antennas in them.
@user3571 I am fond of the Ring extenders. They are plug-in dedicated repeaters that also have battery backups and will send an event when they switch to battery power or back. Handy for detecting power outages! I have not had great luck with line-powered switches as repeaters. I think the fact that they're in little metal boxes is probably not helping.
Correct, they both can talk to the hub (01) and thats it, if they are battery sensors they dont act as repeaters ever since they only wake up to send in reports. You need and plugged in / wired device in there to act as a repeater.
This particular nuance is not Hubitat-specific; rather it is z-wave (and zigbee) specific.
Basically, for both protocols, line voltage devices can typically function as repeaters. While battery-powered devices don't.
The reason for this is that battery-powered devices put the z-wave or zigbee radio to sleep to conserve battery power. And the radio is periodically awakened to send a status report. Thus the radio in a battery-powered device may be sleeping at the instant it is necessary to "hear" and "repeat" a transmission, causing the loss of that transmission.
To avoid this, for both protocols, with very rare exception, only line powered devices are marked as being capable of repeating for other devices.
I had modified an image I found on Google explaining how zigbee mesh networks work, and have pasted it below. Broadly speaking, z-wave mesh networks are similar.
I have installed the tilt sensors after relocating the HE and they seem to be working, hooray. However, I do have some questions on the Z-Wave details page, specifically the dB and kbps values. As I recall, the kbps was 100 when they were sitting 3' from the HE and the dB wasn't even displayed. I think I had seen approximately 25 dB when I had moved the sensors 30' from the HE while maintaining line of sight in the house. Not sure what the kbps was at that point. Making progress.
I see zwave plus devices switch between 40 and 100 kbps sometimes. Others have had really good success getting 100 kbps with the HE antenna mod installed.
I usually only worry about devices that are at 9.6kbps. 40 is fine for me.
I don't think that 40k alone is a complete indication of health. That said, your RSSI is fine, and you have only 1 route change, which is usually an indication things are minimally OK.
I do think that overall you would be better off with a few more devices that can repeat though, typically people see a much better experience when you hit some critical mass in the mesh. This is not a scientific number, but about a dozen repeating devices is where things seem to become a lot more stable for many users.
If you look at the Z-wave picture I posted above, you can imagine how more paths (repeating devices) would be better than just one path.
