Question

Let’s talk zwave repeaters.  Has anyone used them and can give me advice on how well they work?Let’s talk zwave repeaters. Has anyone used them and can give me advice on how well they work? Do you have any outside and if so where? I tried light bulbs but they have to constantly be on or the connection drops to the other devices. I am trying to find a work around for a detached garage.  

Answer 1

I have 2 GE outlets. Not outside though. Work well repeating.  

Comments

@hokkaido they have to be exterior to extend the signal. Looking more towards the actual repeater devices as they would constantly be plugged in.  

---

@macrogamete gotcha. I have quite a large zigbee mesh with about 20+ repeaters, and devices up to 150ft out from my house. I don’t use any repeaters outside. All of them are inside with sufficient strength to reach my outside end devices. I have a smartthings outlet that carries a few of them 70 ft out to the mailbox and delivery box. The outlet is in the garage. I do monitor my mesh with XBee mesh mapping XCTU. I would guess if you had an outlet on an external wall nearest to your outside devices it should work for you. Look at innovelli products. He has a lot of z-wave stuff.  

---

@hokkaido yes those are the bulbs that I bought but the problem is I have only 1 external outlet which is why I tried the bulbs first. I was hoping to put a repeater in the attic of both buildings to get the signals jumped.  

---

@macrogamete yea, that what I have with my zigbee. I have 2 XBee repeaters, one in the house, and one in my barn to jump signals. The XBee can carry up to 2 miles supposedly. The are about 150ft apart.  

Answer 2

The ge outdoor outlets repeat zwave.  

Answer 3

How far is the garage? This is the range info for ZWave from z-wave. com/faq What is Z-Wave's range? It is recommended to have a Z-Wave device roughly every 30 feet or even closer for maximum efficiency. While Z-Wave has a range of 100 meters or 328 feet in open air, building materials reduce that range. The more line powered devices in your Z-Wave network, the better, as they also act as repeaters to extend the Z-Wave signal. Z-Wave’s mesh networking allows a Z-Wave signal to “hop” through other Z-Wave products to reach the destination device to be controlled. If there is a wall interfering with this signal, all you need is a simple Z-Wave repeater or other line powered device to work around the wall so the signal can continue on to its final destination. Z-Wave supports up to 4 hops so the total home coverage will grow depending on the amount of Z-Wave products in the network. The maximum range with 4 hops is roughly 600 feet or 200 meters. Personally, I plan my zwave Mesh with devices every 25-50 ft.  

Comments

@anatolia7046 yeah that wouldn’t be a problem had I thought about the lightbulbs ahead of time. That is why I am looking at the repeaters by themselves in the attic. I may just buy plugs and wire a plug in the freaking attic.  

Answer 4

I was pretty impressed with the distance of zwave, I put a zwave switch in my back garage (about 80 feet away) from the closest switch and haven't had not one problem yet. Going to put more out there, but wanted to see how it worked.  

Answer 5

The ring alarm range extenders work as zwave repeaters. I had to do the same to get the signal out to my garage