Poor range for Kwikset zwave lock?

Hi I have a couple kwikset 910 zwave locks connected to smartthings hub v2. The one installed on the detached garage door will go offline from time to time. (garage is not far from the house).
I have a xiaomi ZigBee door sensor on the same door and it’s been reliable for the past year.
I do have a Leviton zwave-plus outlet plugged in the house to function as a repeater, kinda half way between the hub and the garage door, but it doesn’t seem to help.
Does anyone have any idea?

Thanks a lot.

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I usually keep the repeater to no more that 5 to 6 feed from the lock. I have a 910 in my mom’s house and the hub is about 10 feet away and had unreliable connections. Once I put in a Inovelli wall plug that repeats into an outlet 4 feet away it has worked flawlessly. With the wall outlet I can now manage the holiday lights as a bonus.

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I have 910 Z-Wave on my back door. I have a Leviton light switch for the garage lights about 2 feet away from the lock and it has never dropped off the network. These locks are Z-Wave, not Z-Wave Plus and have limited range. You could try a plug-in repeater near the lock and see if that helps. Also, not all repeaters work with locks. Here is one reference that might help.Z-Wave Repeaters for Z-Wave Locks

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Z wave locks use a specific technology called “beaming” which most other battery operated devices don’t use. For that reason, they tend to work best when there is a repeater which supports beaming quite close to the lock. This is true even for locks which are in the same room with the hub. So it’s not about range exactly, it’s more about having a device nearby that can hold the beaming messages for the lock. See the FAQ (this is a clickable link)

Thanks for the detailed explanation guys.
I actually have a Leviton branded zwave outlet (instead of GE) which seems to support beaming.
Didn’t know about the zwave repair, just tried that and hopefully can help solve some issues.

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seems the problem still persists even after adding the zwave outlet as an range extender.
Tried to replace with new batteries, no luck. Any better ideas?

Another quick update:
Seems what happens is that from time to time, the lock will show up disconnected in Smartthings app, however you can still control it (unlock/lock), and then the app will show the current correct status.

Also if upgrading to smartthing v3 will sort of this fixed problem due to the improved range?

Thanks a lot,

I have the same issue occasionally with the Kwikset Z-Wave at my Mom’s house. I have setup a monitor for devices that are offline in WebCORE and I would say once or twice a week it shows offline but works fine. Come to think of it, it hasn’t fired off a offline event since the last SmartThings outage. But it usually only stays offline for one 5 minute cycle of my monitor so it’s not causing any usage issues.

I also have a Inovelli Zwave wall outlet 2 feet away from it as the repeater. Without that I was having all sorts of problems with that lock.

I see this occasionally with my locks. It’s an annoyance but does not affect the operation of the locks as far as I can tell. I have the V2 hub. I haven’t heard of anything that would improve range in the V3 hub. The newer versions of the Kwikset 910 locks are Z-Wave plus, which would improve range. I contacted Kwikset to see if these Z-Wave versions are upgradable to Z-Wave plus and was told that they are not upgradable and that Kwikset does not sell the radio module separately.

Cheers

Do you have any Leviton zwave light switches?

There is a known problem with Leviton light switches from late 2017 and 2018 not correctly repeating specifically for kwikset locks. :disappointed_relieved:

There is a firmware update available for the switches which correct this, but you might need to buy an additional device to be able to install the update. (Or harass Leviton support until they give it to you, which works best for people who have lots of the switches.)

See the discussion in the following thread

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Thanks guys. Good to know I am not alone on this.
Too bad it’s not possible for a simple changeover of the z-wave plus module to make it an already awesome lock even better.

If it’s a leviton issue, the problem Is with the repeaters not the lock. Just Kill the power to the Leviton device, put a different brand of beaming repeater close to the lock, run a zwave repair so the lock starts routing through the new device, then restore the power to the Leviton. That should take the Leviton out of the equation.

You have to repeat this step anytime you wanted to run a Z wave repair again, but it should solve the issue of the messages not getting through.

Or read the other thread, you may be able to talk Leviton into replacing your device. Assuming it’s the problem.