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is the range of 433mhz better than z-wave?

richardverrichardver Member
in Archive
Hi all,

I have received my Homey last week and so far I am moderately positive. I already had some KaKu devices which I have connected to my Homey. I'm new to Z-wave however, so I bought a Fibaro Wall plug this week. This works, but I find the range very poor in comparison to my KaKu devices which I find unexpected because I thought Z-wave is on a less crowded frequency. 

Z-wave is failing for me already after 6 meters without obstacles. KaKu is still working after 10 meters with a small wall in between.

Is this as expected for Z-wave? Then I would need a lot of hubs...

Comments

  • ErikVanDongenErikVanDongen Member
    edited April 2016
    I have installed z-wave switched all over my house. All these powered z-wave devices creates a mesh-network with a good range. Battery powered devices use this mesh network to reach the controller.
    It would not recommend to only use battery powered z-wave sensors in your house.
  • aloftaloft Member
    ErikVanDongen said:
    I have installed z-wave switched all over my house. All these powered z-wave devices creates a mesh-network with a good range. Battery powered devices use this mesh network to reach the controller.
    It would not recommend to only use battery powered z-wave sensors in your house.
    Is this mesh working as expected? Yesterday I installed an extra powered device somewhat further away (and paired it Homey nearby).  Since then (although parallel with the .32 upgrade) , Z-wave is far from stable.  If it is not .32 , I expect mesh networking to be the issue.
  • bvdbosbvdbos Member
    Strangely (afaik as opposed to ie zigbee), Zwave requires a mesh-table on the controller so if there's something wrong there, a network may become unstable....
  • richardverrichardver Member
    @ErikVanDongen what is the distance between your powered z-wave devices?

    Maybe I'm just disappointed with the range in comparison to KaKu and wifi (but that's apples / oranges).
  • AndyWildeAndyWilde Member
    I belive that as zwave is operating at a higher frequency that it is more likely to be effected by distance and I ejects than 433mhz assuming that both have the same output power,   
  • ErikVanDongenErikVanDongen Member
    edited April 2016
    aloft said:
    I have installed z-wave switched all over my house. All these powered z-wave devices creates a mesh-network with a good range. Battery powered devices use this mesh network to reach the controller.
    It would not recommend to only use battery powered z-wave sensors in your house.
    Is this mesh working as expected? Yesterday I installed an extra powered device somewhat further away (and paired it Homey nearby).  Since then (although parallel with the .32 upgrade) , Z-wave is far from stable.  If it is not .32 , I expect mesh networking to be the issue.
    Ah well, I don't trust my entire house to Homey yet. So it's working very stable on an old Homeseer setup (and I want to get rid off it as soon as possible). 
    Biggest distance between powered nodes is 7 meters including some walls. 

  • RocodamelsheRocodamelshe Member
    I have a Fibaro wallplug added to Homey. When the plug is on the second floor (eerste verdieping in nederlands) he is out of reach. I also have some Fibaro smoke detectors (v2) and 1 of them is working fine on the thirth floor ( tweede verdieping in nederlands). Now is was wondering: Is it the v2 that has more reach?
    Also wanna create a mesh-network but was wondering:

    Is Homey creating a mesh-network automaticly or is it done with the divices?
    How many powered devices u need to create the mesh-network?
    Is Homey counting as 1?

  • honeyhoney Member
    In my case too Homey can control a 433Mhz device 2 floors above with 100% reliability. Homey`s Z-wave range is very limited in my case (I don`t have mains powered mesh). It can`t control devices further then 5 meters away. And even if it is in a 2m range it has a ~20-30% reliability. Many of the packages are lost or partially received. There is a serious radio/interference/signal processing issue. I hope it is not interference with other RF elements in the device so it can be fixed. Wish if Athom could provide a proper explanation of the issue, not like how they have dealt with the IR issue which is near unusable. 
  • bvdbosbvdbos Member
    I replaced my sensor to a distance of 5 meter from Homey but didn't notice any problems. After Wednesday I'll see what happens if I put it further away... Are there a lot of electric devices standing nearby Homey, this will case serious interference...
  • djefmodjefmo Member
    richardver said:
    Hi all,

    I have received my Homey last week and so far I am moderately positive. I already had some KaKu devices which I have connected to my Homey. I'm new to Z-wave however, so I bought a Fibaro Wall plug this week. This works, but I find the range very poor in comparison to my KaKu devices which I find unexpected because I thought Z-wave is on a less crowded frequency. 

    Z-wave is failing for me already after 6 meters without obstacles. KaKu is still working after 10 meters with a small wall in between.

    Is this as expected for Z-wave? Then I would need a lot of hubs...
    I have exactly the same problem; the Z-wave range is very poor. It basically only works in the same room (so without any wall obstacles). However, manuals state that the Z-wave range should be up to 50m (even with obstacles). Don't know what's causing the problem? 
  • djeskodjesko Member
    djefmo said:
    richardver said:
    Hi all,

    I have received my Homey last week and so far I am moderately positive. I already had some KaKu devices which I have connected to my Homey. I'm new to Z-wave however, so I bought a Fibaro Wall plug this week. This works, but I find the range very poor in comparison to my KaKu devices which I find unexpected because I thought Z-wave is on a less crowded frequency. 

    Z-wave is failing for me already after 6 meters without obstacles. KaKu is still working after 10 meters with a small wall in between.

    Is this as expected for Z-wave? Then I would need a lot of hubs...
    I have exactly the same problem; the Z-wave range is very poor. It basically only works in the same room (so without any wall obstacles). However, manuals state that the Z-wave range should be up to 50m (even with obstacles). Don't know what's causing the problem? 
    Same with Fibaro HC2 ,   i need 4 wall plugs to cover my ground floor.


  • MarcoFMarcoF Member
    This evening i will test Homey's mesh network by placing different brands/types of powered Zwave devices, in a straight vertical line, to and on the attic.

    If mesh works as expected, then all devices should keep working after the replace.

  • MichaelMichael Member
    If it doesn't work as expected it might be good to create an issue on Github and let everybody that have the same comment on that.
  • MarcoFMarcoF Member
    edited May 2016
    Ok, around 17:30 I replaced the following devices;
    1. Fibaro 2x1,5kW relay
    2. AEOTEC Smart Plug
    3. Greenwave Single Socket
    4. Greenwave Multi Socket
    The devices are placed in a "vertical" line and in the ideal case routing will take place in order of devices.

    So if Homey want/need to get to the Greenwave Multi Socket, the path will be;
    > Greenwave Multi 
== 2,5m vertical wooden floor 
> Greenwave Single
== 3,5m vertical concreet floor ==
    > AEOTEC
== 3,5m vertical concreet floor ==
> Homey >>> 4m horizontal no obstruction >>> Fibaro 2x1,5


    My current Vera3 Zwave network is still active. The Vera3 modules are at the same floors, some almost on the same location and my Vera3 has no problems to reach the modules in its network.

    Will monitor the devices and hopefully the all will come back online. Also I will try to post every hour an system log for @Athom / @Taco and hopefully it will help to make Zwave more robust and stable.

    18:40 = 1CC73D0561
    19:29 = E2E952986B (just before reboot)
    19:35 = CD37EF0953 (just after reboot)

    [edit 19:29]
    Unfortunately zwave seems to be dead, node in/ex- clusion doesn't work and zwave chip reset is also not reacting.
    Now a full Homey reset.... Very curious whats going to happen with all the "dead" devices.


    [edit 19:39]
    Homey shows that all modules are back online;


    I tested them and all seem to work.
    While testing i toasted one relay of the 6node..... Hopefully Nuon have some spare units.....
  • MarcoFMarcoF Member
    edited May 2016
    So one of my Greenwave 6 node devices is toasted.... In the test it was the "last in line" device, so not really important, but i will place the Fibaro Wallplug for it in place.
    Then I will keep this situation for a couple of days to see if its all stable and it keeps working.

    For now it all works, switching device with the App is "pretty" fast and stable. Only on the Attic the WiFi reach is very limited, so the phone keeps switching from WiFi to 4G and at that moment the whole App is unresponsive.
  • richardverrichardver Member
    That's some interesting testing you're doing, @MarcoF. I did some further testing in my own humble way (I only have one wallplug...) and I think I initially came to the wrong conclusion. For me the range is now OK-ish - not great but acceptable, however I'm sporadic loosing the Zwave device in my Homey. The wallplug is 4 meters away from the Homey, no obstacles. I've setup a simple flow where I toggle the switch every minute. In the Insights tab I see gaps where Homey didn't toggle the device for a couple of hours.

    So I'm interested in your results, if your Homey can maintain a stable connection for a longer period!
  • DaneeDeKruyffDaneeDeKruyff Member
    A day has passed, I'm curious what happened today :) @marcof
  • MarcoFMarcoF Member
    Will post tomorrow some more info. 
  • MarcoFMarcoF Member
    edited May 2016


    That's the current status.... its a bit of a bummer.....

    By loading the page only the most rights device (Fibaro Wall Plug) was "dead", but after clicking/interacting with the other 3 device become also dead.

    The Fibaro 2x1.5kW V2 relay is a very strange story;
    Main device; "offline"
    Child 1: "offline"
    Child 2: "online"
    Especially because this is a brand new V2 device that I got delivered 2 weeks ago.

    Strangely the 1.2 and AEOTEC Smartplug are still clickable and so it looks like the still work (I'm not at home, so i'm not able to physically see/hear or the relays 'click')

    The most right device is the Fibaro Wall plug and that one I moved from the livingroom to the Attic.
    After moving it didn't come back online and the strange thing is that when i added it firstly in the livingroom it also was offline and after some hours it came online. So now after moving it, it became dead and stayed dead.

    Have still one Greenwave Single socket spare and will move that one to the Attic as well to see if that one comes online and stays online.

    From my point of view the network looks like this;
    System log for @Athom ;;; ; 2F858549D8

    Will make a ticket for this issue.
    Issue; https://github.com/athombv/homey/issues/569

    New situation;
This discussion has been closed.