Optimum wireless antenna locations

[richardfj]

I just installed a new M1XRF2G (wireless input expander) for my ELK M1 yesterday, and immediately got some interference issues with my z-wave performance. I tried to optimize the network, and even a couple of the devices that were having the most trouble specifically, but it's still not completely reliable. So before I started repositioning any of my equipment, I was wondering what folks would recommend.

Currently, I have a z-troller resting on top of my vertical HT2 (since the z-troller doesn't have any wall mount brackets/holes etc), about a foot to left of center of the top shelf in the closet where I have located all my HA equipment.

On the left wall (hanging on the outside of my ELK M1 enclosure, since it's magnetic), I have my D-link WiFi antenna (http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=416). The antenna is vertical and the top of the antenna is about a foot and a half below and two feet to the left of my z-troller.

The new M1XRF2G (http://www.elkproducts.com/products/m1/M1XRF.htm) is mounted on the back wall, about two feet below and two feet to the right of the z-troller.

The space between has some shelves with my sound amplifiers, all my routing equipment, two HT2s and a desktop tower PC.

I've had some problems with a couple of z-wave devices prior to the installation of the the M1XRF (2-3 devices failing polling about 10-15% of the time), but nothing that impacts my overall reliability.

The closet is fairly central in the house, which is why I picked it in the first place.

What I'm thinking about ...
- should I move the z-troller, the M1XRF, or both?
- if I move the M1XRF, can I put it in the attic (seems like the most convenient location ...although, I'm wondering if there is a security issue with this)
- if I move the z-troller (by simply using an extension serial cable) what are some ideas for moving the device into a central part of the house, without having to do to much running of wire and still keeping the device accessible for adding new z-wave nodes etc. [one thought, would be a small box in the ceiling that I can clip on and off (I was thinking about using one of the Elk project boxes, since it can be painted and easily snaps on and off ... but that still leaves me with the need to run an outlet in the attic, which after having just completed a two year re-wiring project, which ended with a complete re-insulation of my attic ... is something I was trying to avoid)
- if I move both the z-troller and the M1XRF, how far apart should they really be to minimize interference, but still get proper range out of both ... anyone else using both devices in their system?
- should I move my wifi antenna? ... I haven't had any issues with wifi coverage, but something feels off about having the antenna mounted to the actual ELK wiring enclosure.

I'm leaning towards ... moving the wifi antenna to the right wall in the closet, moving my M1XRF into the attic and the z-troller to a box mounted to the ceiling in my living room (almost dead center in the house) ... the z-troller and M1XRF would then be about 15 feet apart.

[dschoppe]

I'm leaning towards ... moving the wifi antenna to the right wall in the closet, moving my M1XRF into the attic and the z-troller to a box mounted to the ceiling in my living room (almost dead center in the house) ... the z-troller and M1XRF would then be about 15 feet apart.

This isn't from personal experience, but my guess is that 15ft of separation should be sufficient. However, I'm also a bit surprised that you're experiencing interference in the first place, given that Z-wave operates in the 900MHz band and your M1XRF appears to use 318MHz.

I haven't installed my Z-troller yet (always too many projects) but will now be on the lookout for interference between Z-wave and wireless parts of my Ademco system which operates at 345MHz I believe.

Please do share your findings if/when you make the changes.

Thanks,
Don

[richardfj]

I will definitely share my experience. Right now it's a fairly consistent issue. I'm thinking it's a matter of signal strength interference, which is an issue because of the units' close proximity.

I think I'll install an extension PS/2 cable to pull the Troller into a more central location, and then move the Elk wireless receiver to somewhere inside the house. I'll have to think about where that is, since I'm not convinced that putting it in the attic is a solid security choice.

... this is a project for sometime next week

[richardfj]

Just a follow-up on this topic since I've played around with it for a few weeks now ... not entirely happy with the results.

First, I moved the Elk wireless base station away the rest of my HA equipment which solved the issue of what I expected was interference. To be honest, I haven't installed any Elk wireless devices on that network yet, so I don't have any feeling for it's effectiveness, but my guess is that that side is pretty bullet proof.

Second, I decided to move my Z-Troller to a more central location. I was getting great results in about 75% of my house from my old location, but was having some intermittent issues reaching distant nodes on the far end of the house. So I purchased a PS/2 extension ... patched the power cable to reach to what I would consider dead center of my house. I mounted an ELK project box in the ceiling and put the Z-troller inside (that way I can easily get to it as I add or delete nodes.

However, since I did that ... now I have trouble with nodes on both far ends of the house ... both the end I had trouble with before and now also the other far end (which includes my contactor switch for my pool pump). As a result, I'm having a lot of failed commands to turn on and off my pool pump, as well as turning on and off the flood lights outside my garage on the other far end.

The house is only 2,600 square feet on one level and I have about 60 z-wave nodes ... so there is no way I couldn't reach every node in the house with 1 or 2 jumps. However, it doesn't seem to want to do that consistently. I'll optimize a node 3-4 times to make sure that routing is correct ... but withint 24 hours it'll start failing again. I have optimized my whole network more times than I can count to make sure that I reset any old routing information ... but still no good.

Is anyone else seeing something so tempremental in their network? You would've have thought that the routing would've taken care of this issue ... hmmm ... frustrating

[richardfj]

In case anyone cares ...

Following Rich's advice in another thread, I went back and reoptimize my network completely. Since then, I have had no issues with missed commands and response times are back to 1-2 seconds like they used to be.

Over time, adding and moving nodes, and then moving the Z-troller caused a general failure of the routing tables (the information stored in each node telling the node which four different paths it can take to reach every other node in the network (including the Z-troller).

This is what I did:
- I walked through each device in my network, using the Z-troller I scanned each device to make sure that it was transmitting correctly. For those devices that have instant status, I also verified that Z-troller was displaying the node number whenever I activated the node (wihtout doing a scan from the troller)
- In that process I ended up locating an appliance module that was just not responding the way it needed to, so I deleted it and replaced it
- I then did a replicate send to each of the handheld remotes I have (3 in total). I then reconfigured the scene information in those remotes (altough, this could've waited until later)
- I optimzed the whole network, paying attention to the nodes that failed to optimize.
- I then individually optimized those nodes that failed, until they successfully optimized four times.
- I then optimized the whole network again, and again payed attention to the nodes that failed to optimize (went from four in the first run to two I think in the second run)
- I went back to individually optimize those that failed until I had four successful individual opimizations ... get the idea?
- I then continued this until I had a error free optimization for the whole network, which I repeated until I had four error free optimizations for the whole network (in total, I probably optimized 20 times for individual nodes and 8 times or so for the whole network)
- I then turned off polling to all my instant status devices (all my devices were set to poll every 10 minutes ... just because I didn't mind the redundancy)
- And at last, I walked the house with my laptop on my arm (running mainlobby client) and verified that the instant status for each device was registering appropriately

A little time consuming, but definitley worth the effort!

Rich - was that the process you were recommending?

[dschoppe]

In case anyone cares ...

I care, thanks for the update

I should mention that since my last post above, I have also installed my Z-troller and four nodes. I've noticed no interference with my Ademco alarm, my wireless X10, or my WLAN!

Don