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433 range testing

2

Comments

  • Just received the RFXtrx433E USB 433.92MHz Transceiver. It's placed near Homey. Test on the 2nd floor with RFXmrgr.

    KaKu AMST-606 contact sensor.  Signal level  = 8  -72dBm with nearby -56dBm. Homey lost after 5 meters ground-floor.
    KaKu AYCT-102  remote.                Signal level  = 7  -64dBm with nearby -56dBm. Only KaKu socket did reacted groundf.


  • While I having a cup of thee the doorbell was activated. This is what RFXmrgr shows.

    Packettype    = Lighting1
    subtype       = ARC
    Sequence nbr  = 165
    housecode     = N
    unitcode      = 8
    Command       = Chime
    Signal level  = 6  -72dBm

    Maybe that's why we can't pair it.

  • lexlex Member
    Yes, the 433 Mhz reception of my Homey is a deception.   :'(
    As a work-around I placed an AEX-701 signal amplifier next to the Homey. While Homey does not receive the signal of my CoCo (KaKu) motion detectors, the amplifier does. The retransmitted signal by the AEX-701 is then detected by the Homey.  :#
  • TheoDeKoningTheoDeKoning Member
    edited October 2016
    Now I have the RFXtrx433E USB 433.92MHz Transceiver after all, I looking with one eye to Domoticz.
    The big thinks Homey should have I don't see that for the moment. Take that moment not to short.

    Edit.
    Looking how to go from here, the test with Homey, on the spot where KaKu ICS-1000 is working, done.
    The conditions are the same for both and this time of year.
    So the aluminium blind are closed before the double glass window. Sadly, Homey can't reaches the last quarter of the garden while the ICS-1000 on the same spot and RFXtrx433E 3 meters further away well.   

  • Done some testing here. Our house has internal walls that are 80 cm thick and my honey was able to talk to a KaKu light at 20 meters through one of those walls. I was very pleasantly surprised.  Could it be that hardware inside Homey differs?

  • Yesterday done some test to with one of my elro switches. Distance 3m without obstacles. Homey turned with the face to the switch. Nothing happens.

    After that i moved Homey 45° against clock and now is working on 3m.

    After 5m nothing happens, no reaction.
  • Mathijs said:
    Our house has internal walls that are 80 cm thick 

    Ur living inside the Rabobank??
  • Mathijs said:
    Our house has internal walls that are 80 cm thick 

    Ur living inside the Rabobank??
    :joy: maybe he's hiding refugees inside the walls
  • i did also realized that when you turn homey in 45°  the range distance to my kaku is littlebit better. instead of 1 meter it is then 3 meters! strange...
  • Mathijs said:
    Our house has internal walls that are 80 cm thick 

    Ur living inside the Rabobank??

    Watermill from 1800.  All stone and very little metal.

    I had some time left and tried with Zwave + using a Fibaro wall switch. No way that will go through one of those walls and even in visual range 433 range is triple that of Zwave.  25 meters without problems.

     I got no explanation why we all seem to get such different results and that's why comparing information might help. My environment is pretty heavy on wifi and I got my own Femtocell for mobile phones. But as we got no neighbours it is pretty silent in most frequency ranges. Perhaps that is a explanation? 
  • TheoDeKoningTheoDeKoning Member
    edited November 2016
    In the RFXtrx433E manual is a table that gives the interference between different 433 protocols.
    So the receiving site you can tick-off.

    With Domoticz on a RPi3 I had problems with my dusk sensors.
    Then I remember this and change the RFXtrx433E setting to the save ones. Problem solved.
    Here it was my Cresta weather station protocol.

    Now on Homey.
    Is it possible that the receiving of to many protocols make some disturbances.
     
    Edit
     http://www.rfxcom.com/WebRoot/StoreNL2/Shops/78165469/MediaGallery/Downloads/RFXtrx_User_Guide.pdf
    Page 14.

  • fvandenreekfvandenreek Member
    edited November 2016
    Same problems here, sensors and doorbellswitch are only working near homey. Perhaps they forgot to add a (hardware)filter and then it is never gonna work, because of the noise..
  • EmileEmile Administrator, Athom
    Hey guys, short but hopefully useful answer:

    The range issues are not a hardware but a software problem. It's a software defined filter for our RF chip that we can finetune, but what we do (listen to, well, everything) is so uncommon that it's hard to get the perfectly balanced 433 MHz configuration.

    Next to that, Reinier, who's responsible for it has been sick at home the last two months without any short-term view on getting better. So currently we're talking to other RF engineers who can help us out here, but as you can imagine it takes some time to find the right guy.

    So short story summarized: we will fix it, because we know the range can be incredible with very narrow parameters. Just give us some breathing room and keep reporting your findings, they really do help us making this go faster.

  • @ Emile, in the last software update the range should be better? (1.02)
  • Emile said:
    Hey guys, short but hopefully useful answer:

    The range issues are not a hardware but a software problem. It's a software defined filter for our RF chip that we can finetune, but what we do (listen to, well, everything) is so uncommon that it's hard to get the perfectly balanced 433 MHz configuration.

    Next to that, Reinier, who's responsible for it has been sick at home the last two months without any short-term view on getting better. So currently we're talking to other RF engineers who can help us out here, but as you can imagine it takes some time to find the right guy.

    So short story summarized: we will fix it, because we know the range can be incredible with very narrow parameters. Just give us some breathing room and keep reporting your findings, they really do help us making this go faster.


    Any news Emile?
  • ????
  • Gerjan said:
    ????

    433 is a very old. Switch to zwave. 
  • Replace all you switches with Zwave you mean? You know how much that will cost?
    As for thick walls, please take a look at the RFXcom-link, page 15. Stone walls will reduce the signal substantially. But, if in clear view there's still a problem, I suspect there's too much interference. Do you have devices with batteries which are running out? They can send really strange signals which can mess up the spectrum...
  • 433, IR i don't understand why the build it into homey. There are borg very old and its asking for troubles. 

    Good Luck to all 433 and IR users.
  • MHubert said:
    433, IR i don't understand why the build it into homey. There are borg very old and its asking for troubles. 

    Good Luck to all 433 and IR users.

    And wat is the range with Zwave?
  • Replace all you switches with Zwave you mean? You know how much that will cost?
    As for thick walls, please take a look at the RFXcom-link, page 15. Stone walls will reduce the signal substantially. But, if in clear view there's still a problem, I suspect there's too much interference. Do you have devices with batteries which are running out? They can send really strange signals which can mess up the spectrum...

    No interference problems, I dit a test switching a Home Easy HE8-77 HW via Homey, even in our garden house it worked fine (20 meters trough 3 walls)

    So it looks like Homey listening on 433 is bad......
  • MHubert said:
    Gerjan said:
    ????

    433 is a very old. Switch to zwave. 
    if its old why do they sell them at mediamarkt bcc blokker aldi action etc. ? that's the stuff my and emiel's mother buy
    they would not have to configure these things just push a simple button , or call a command to homey.
  • Its old and cheap.. That's why they sell it at the store's you refer too. So its entry level equipment. That doesn't mean it should work.

    The problem as i understand is is this. For example KAKU ics2000 only  listens to 433.92 because its exactly there. Bu homey is made for al brands and that means it has to listen and send on the whole 433 Frequentie. And that's where its get messy. There is a lot of noise on the band that has to be filtert. There fine tuning it but finding the best setting and adding much more brands is a hard thing!

    I do believe they would get it eventually but it takes time. And there now more focus on media i think. 
  • So athom promotes Homey with the appstore, where a potential new customer finds all kinds of 433 apps, and these costumers needs to bee aware that most stuff will work limited because of noise and in a worse case it totally will not work in there situation. 

    Nice! 
  • @MHubert ;

    I Just have bought 2 Fibaro Zwave+ multi sensors, also problems reaching Homey. one is 5 meters away (2 walls) and on is 10 meters away (2 walls) I thought Zwave+ range was better????
  • Emile said:
    Hey guys, short but hopefully useful answer:

    The range issues are not a hardware but a software problem. It's a software defined filter for our RF chip that we can finetune, but what we do (listen to, well, everything) is so uncommon that it's hard to get the perfectly balanced 433 MHz configuration.

    Next to that, Reinier, who's responsible for it has been sick at home the last two months without any short-term view on getting better. So currently we're talking to other RF engineers who can help us out here, but as you can imagine it takes some time to find the right guy.

    So short story summarized: we will fix it, because we know the range can be incredible with very narrow parameters. Just give us some breathing room and keep reporting your findings, they really do help us making this go faster.

    @Emile   any news yet?
    looks like the rx range is getting more poor.
    3 or 4 meters max, at the moment.
    And,   my ASUN 650    (i have 8)      do not respond anymore.      two of them are oke, but respond whit delay.  the rest one by one stopped.      (as work arround i must use my old homewizard   :/ ,   same distance,    works always)
    I investigate erverything now in the last weeks.  PTP    batteries    ect....
    I found out a few days ago   someone posted a screenshot of a flow, that pictured that he had other icons for asun650.
    it was the icon i liked more, because it showed the   rolluiken   moving up and down.
    I cannot find that screenshot anymore...    perhaps it was on slack.
    Maybe i am doing something wrong, but i cant find what....

  • tim1990 said:
    Its old and cheap.. That's why they sell it at the store's you refer too. So its entry level equipment. That doesn't mean it should work.


    And it is the most downloaded app. 
  • MMM I was blaming the KAKU transmission power, and am replacing all KAKU crap ..... 
    The strange thing is, after testing I found the range of a transmission signal of Homey was better in comparison to the KAKU transmission (remote, movement sensor and door/window sensors) 
    I did extensive testing with my KAKU receivers in my back yard (electric windscreen (approx. 10 M away from Homey) it did work with Homey, not with the KAKU transmission devices ... 
  • MMM I was blaming the KAKU transmission power, and am replacing all KAKU crap ..... 
    The strange thing is, after testing I found the range of a transmission signal of Homey was better in comparison to the KAKU transmission (remote, movement sensor and door/window sensors) 
    I did extensive testing with my KAKU receivers in my back yard (electric windscreen (approx. 10 M away from Homey) it did work with Homey, not with the KAKU transmission devices ... 
    i think i did read your report from the testing.
    the problem is not the sending signal from homey TO the kaku receivers.  thats ok i think. (was little better for 1.0.1)
    The problem is receiving signal FROM kaku.  (i am sure kaku sending well.   Homewizard receiving signal easy)
    It is really just a few meters in the room it self.
    Did you have the same experiance ?
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