Range problems in a large home

Hello, all. Hoping you can help me. I have GE paddle dimmer zwave devices throughout the house, combined with door sensors, both Samsung and other brands. For a while, everything worked, but of late it seems like things are failing left and right. I lose switches for no apparent reason and have to re connect them to the hub. I am using a 2.0 hub. I have done countless mesh repairs, to no real avail. I have put range extenders all of the house, especially downstairs where things get more dicey. I am still running the classic Smartthings (never got any email from Samsung to upgrade). Would switching to the newer hub help? What about buying one of the Samsung Smartthings Mesh 3 packs and placing them on each of the three levels in the home? Any help appreciated!

Nope, and highly unlikely. Most likely you’re experiencing issues with the latest firmware release, at least that’s my guess based on the info you’ve provided.

I recommend calling (or emailing) ST support and get a ticket logged. You are not alone!

Thanks. Will do!

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So, just an update. I was really having a bunch of problems. I have a large home with over 100 devices, mostly light switches. A few switches (GE z-wave dimmers and on/off switches) failed after about 4 years and I had to replace them. More disturbingly (and possibly related?) several devices would show as unavailable unless I moved the hub close to them. Repeated network repairs didn’t help. I finally decided to try getting more hubs and moved to the new app. All problems solved. I put a hub on each of the home’s three floors. I liked the fact that the new app let me choose which hub to connect the device to. It was a lot of work excluding everything from the old hub and moving it all over, but everything is much cleaner and all is working much better now. The network repairs go much faster and I can troubleshoot more easily with devices divided up across the hubs. Just thought I would share.

A side note, I was disappointed that the new app didn’t let me get into the device properties more, nor change icons. I like to have the switches’ blue lights illuminate when the light is powered on. On panels with lots of switches, it’s easier to see which lights need to be turned off when leaving a room (at least for me). The old app let me change when the switch’s light illuminated. Not so on the new app.

I am also still frustrated that the app doesn’t allow me to just list the lights or devices that are powered on at the top of the home page. Again, because I have a lot of devices. I have to scroll way gown through the screen to look for what my kids may have left on (yes, I have automations that turn things off, but still). An app with more customizations would be nice.

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Just an update — I got the three pack, and it did fix my issues.

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You can still change the performance of the LED indicator on the switches, but if it’s not exposed in the official device type handler, you would have to temporarily assign the device to the “Z wave tweaker,” use that to change the LED control parameters which are stored in the switch itself, and then switch back to the regular device type handler.

Not sure if that’s worth the trouble to you, but here is the link to the tweaker if you do you want to use it. It will work with any mains powered Z wave device.

Many thanks! I found I could just pop over to the old app and do it there.

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