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    Z-net placement

    I haven't been able to find any posts about placement strategy.

    I will soon have two Z-net. I have a three floors

    Basement - 15 devices
    Main - 50 devices
    2nd Floor - 15 devices

    These are approximate number but pretty close. The main floor is the one that will continue to grow the most. I want two networks because of crazy routing issues.

    I have read that ceilings and floor reduce signal distance by as much as 70% and inner walls by as much as 40%.

    So I was wondering if anyone has any real experience on how to place z-nets. Of course I had one controller running all three floors for the last year and even though I run into some issues it does work pretty well.

    I was thinking about one of these three options. Leaning towards the first because I don't need to spend any more money and the other seem like total over kill. But really most of the automation stuff I do could be considered total overkill
    1. Split the house down the middle and have two networks that communicate with devices on all three floors.
    2. Purchase one more Z-net and have one run each floor.
    3. Go way over board and purchase two more Z-nets. Then dedicate one for the basemen, one for the 2nd floor and 2 for the main floor.

    #2
    Here have one Homeseer ZNet like device POE connected (not wirelessly) in the attic of a two story brick and frame home with no issues getting to Z-Wave devices in the attic, 2nd floor, main floor and basement. (and outside)

    Playing around some here replicated the Z-Wave network to a Samsung hub located in the family room and it sees all of the same devices just fine.

    I have also replicated same network to a Leviton VRCOP which is mounted adjacent to my Leviton Omni Pro 2 panel in the basement. It too sees all of the same devices with no issues.
    Last edited by Pete; November 8, 2017, 11:24 AM.
    - Pete

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    Homeseer 3 Pro - 3.0.0.548 (Linux) - Ubuntu 18.04/W7e 64 bit Intel Haswell CPU 16Gb
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    X10, UPB, Zigbee, ZWave and Wifi MQTT automation-Tasmota-Espurna. OmniPro 2, Russound zoned audio, Alexa, Cheaper RFID, W800 and Home Assistant

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      #3
      What routing issues are you dealing with? I have roughly 90 physical zwave devices on my network and only 1 znet, placed in the middle of the house. It's 2 stories with a basement (3 floors total). Generally speaking this setup is flawless (zwave inherently can have some hiccups).

      My znet is placed behind a picture on the main floor (the picture was placed to hide the ethernet connection and outlet that was put in by the previous owner)... seemed a perfect place to hide it.

      Comment


        #4
        Well it may not solve my zwave issues. They really aren't that bad anyways. Here are my issues. Maybe this thread will evolve into suggestions on better zwave management, since I'm a total noob on that.
        • Nodes that are too far away for a direct connection to the interface will occasionally quit working or work very slow. When I go look at them I see these crazy hops from one end of the house to the other. So I set them back to a reasonable route but they don't always stay there. I have a lot of nodes very close to each other.
        • Nodes that are close enough to be direct connect with not stay direct connected and end up with a crazy path that goes out to the other side of the house and back. I don't often notice these becoming unresponsive but they do slow.
        • Network optimization doesn't work at all. When I do it the paths are usually worse and several nodes become very slow or unresponsive. So i typically do a manual look at the paths and attempt to correct them myself.


        I figure with multiple controllers I can atleast make it so all nodes could direct connect to one of the interfaces. I also figure that seperating into multiple networks would eliminate and totally crazy and unstable paths.

        I am upgrading to HS3PRO and needed a new zwave interface so I figured might as well separate now instead of when I have 140 nodes (which is about where I think i will end up). I think some of my event slowness might actually be the controller so some of it might disappear. My main reason for upgrade is i need more than 5 plugins, but I'm hoping i will see other benefits so i decided to attempt to design a better system since I am going to completely redo all of the events and devices.

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          #5
          I tried first adding a Z-Net as a secondary controller on my network. It worked fine, but after looking at how it all worked, it made more sense for me to add each controller as a separate HomeID. I have 3 Z-Nets, each on a different network. On my primary I have 91 nodes and 15 on each of the other 2 controllers. It has been a very reliable and easy to maintain configuration.
          HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

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            #6
            Maybe I don't understand what a secondary controller is. Mine are setup as two separate controllers and networks. I guess I didn't understand that you could have to controllers on the same network. Now that you say that I guess it makes sense and I could see how that could help.

            I have no idea if it's the ZNETs, the SEL or the fact that I removed all non zwave plus light switches from my network. But my performance is so much better than before. Double tap events that shut off 5 lights would stagger and lag before. The first light might start half a second to a second after double tap and the last finish up to 3 seconds later.

            Now it's like they are all on the same physical switch, they actually appear to all turn off exactly at the same time and all like they are physically attached to the switch, so less than a 1/4 second.

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