Home Automation Plan

[JDRoberts]

@etbrown

Instead of channel hoping on ZigBee communication, is changing the channel for the wifi an effective alternative?

It can certainly help.

FAQ: What WiFi Channel is least likely to interfere with SmartThings?

Z wave and wifi don’t interfere with each other, so you don’t have to worry about that. But WiFi can drown out nearby zigbee, particularly boosted Wi-Fi. At my house, we have a Wi-Fi booster. If we plug it in on the north wall in one room, all the smartthings – controlled zigbee devices to the west of it drop off-line. If we just move the Wi-Fi booster to the east wall, all the zigbee devices work fine. So the first step is to make sure that your SmartThings hub is at least 3 m away from your Wi-Fi router or any access point. But sometimes the problem is bigger than that, and your Wi-Fi router is broadcasting on a channel which is just drowning out your zigbee devices. You do have the option to change your Wi-Fi router, typically between channels 1, 6, and 11, so what’s the best Wi-F…