Hub Placement Questions

Devices & Integrations Connected Things
1

2 questions about hub placement (v3 hub):

1). Would being near (like right next to) an eero wifi mesh node hinder signal?

  1. does positioning of the hub matter? Flat vs vertical (like mounting on a wall). Front pointing in a specific direction matter?
2

  1. probably yes, for Zigbee and thread.

  2. probably not: the protocols that smartthings uses are Omnidirectional.

It sounds like you would probably find the FAQ on wireless range and repeaters helpful. Start with post 11 (I will link directly to that post). Read that, then go up to the top of the thread, and read the whole thing. After that, you should know most of what you need to know on this topic. :sunglasses:

A Guide to Wireless Range & Repeaters - #11 by JDRoberts

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3

Awesome! Thanks!

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4

I have my hub (v2) sitting flat between (6" apart) a Wi-Fi master node and Hue hub and in proximity to (18") a Sonoff hub and a Sonos boost and have no problems whatsoever. Elsewhere in the bouse I also have an Ikea hub and a second Hue Hub running wired to a Wi-Fi slave node without issue.

What I have found though is that my whole setup is, unsurprisingly, sensitive to channel overlap so have ensured that all wireless channels across protocols have good separation. I also keep my hubs high (above head height) to optimise coverage.

:+1:

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5

Wow, that is a lot of hubs.

6

I’m glad it’s working well for you, and there’s always some trial and error, but that isn’t to say it might not work even better if your hubs were physically more separated. Even though you are on different channels, you may be creating additional obstacles for messages to get through, meaning that they might sometimes have to be resent two or three times, thus slightly impacting response time everywhere on your network. Of course, it might not even be an improvement you would notice if you did move things farther apart.

Quality of Service (QoS) is always somewhat subjective. If you’re happy with what you have, there’s no reason to change it. But for best practices, physically separating the hubs with a greater distance allows signal to spread before it runs into interference, so it’s just a tuning exercise. :man_shrugging:t2:

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