Hub v2 Antenna Orientation

Not it!

Twenty characters.

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I was just trying to find more info about hub v2’s antenna orientation, and the blog post mentioned above still references and shows hub v1. Did we ever get a definitive answer as to the orientation of the antennas in the new hub? @Ben, would you know?

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Would be good to get official word but I think someone did a tear down with pics somewhere on this forum…

There’s a member teardown that shows the positions of the Zigbee and zwave antennas reversed in the new hub.

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Yep tried to have a search but can’t find it so far.

Thanks @JDRoberts. My search for antenna was’t fine tuned enough to find those pics, but I did remember reading somewhere about the orientation change. Did v2’s zwave antenna really go from pointing forward to now out the back? Seems odd to me, but you never know.

So, do we know how important device orientation is for the ST hub? I’d really like to wall mount mine and get it up and out of the proximity of other devices.

I have 3 wishes for the hub:
-make it wall mountable, or provide a wall mount that it fits into
-provide a POE jack
-build in lithium ion batteries that the hub automatically keeps charged

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Found it:

I’d love it if it supported PoE but alas I doubt there is near enough demand to justify the additional costs involved. That being said I am happily powering my V2 hub with one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-POE10R-Gigabit-Splitter-compliant/dp/B003CFATQK

That’s the same one I posted three posts above yours. :wink:

Orientation matters, how much depends on the exact architecture of your home. If you’re shooting the signal straight into the side of a metal filing cabinet things are not going to be good. Or straight into a concrete floor. See the blog article linked to in the first post of this thread, it will show you the orientation for the V1 hub. The V2 hub is similar except I believe the zwave and zigbee antennas changed places.

The signal is just like most radio frequency signals, including Wi-Fi, it does spread in 360°.

Being on a wall shouldn’t really be any different than being on a table.

[quote=“JDRoberts, post:12, topic:22295, full:true”]That’s the same one I posted three posts above yours. :wink:
[/quote]

How strange, I didn’t see the links before, my bad! Should have known you’d beat me too it! Thanks JD!

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A mounting bracket like this would be cool:

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Yeah I wanted to do something that would hold it on the ceiling while covering the wires, just need to find the time to model it and 3D print it!

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I can’t tell a thing from those teardown pics! How can you guys tell the antenna positions?

zw = z-wave
bt = bluetooth
zb = zigbee

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Sorry to bring up an old post. I am a new ST V2 user and have the same question as well. But after reading this thread, what is the difference between @RottenMutt teardown diagram and the diagram below? Assuming teardown diagram is top view, seems V1 and V2 has the same antenna direction when they should be opposite?

@teohwk Scratch what I wrote. That is the top view in the tear down image. It does appear that the antenna orientations between hubs v1 and v2 are the same.

Thanks for the clarification. I was confused for a while there.

Cheers

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I’m experimenting with placements for my hub - I live in an apartment, but have access to the attic so I have some flexibility with running wires… within reason (what I can fix later with drywall…). I noticed in the labeled pics, there’s 4 small solder pads for the antennas for zigbee and bluetooth. While the bluetooth isn’t of much interest at the moment (since its not implemented…), the zigbee one… could a surface mount u.fl (I think thats the right name for it) antenna connector be placed there and an external antenna added? For that matter, the z-wave antenna is certainly easy to get at too (different frequencies obviously) - just thinking about ways to get the antennas away from the board and/or add external antenna ‘options’ - I’m not an RF guy, but I know a little (except terminology apparently).

I’m guessing ST staff isn’t going to reveal much on this one :slight_smile: but I’m not opposed to modifying things even if its not quite as aesthetically pleasing.