I completely understand your frustration. For me it is easy to have my hub away from my router because I have Ethernet wired in the walls, with ports in most of the rooms. I realize that is not the case for everyone and, unless you have a carpet or some baseboard design that allows you to hide a cable, it is not an ideal situation. When you open the Wink hub, one of the first instructions it has is to place the hub away from the WiFi router, but that hub runs on WiFi, not Ethernet.
Even though Terry has no issues running his hub next to the router, it is recommended to do otherwise. Maybe you can try changing your WiFi channel and it might help. I am never able to remember the posts where I see things, but @JDRoberts is incredibly good at it. There was one thread where a new user couldn’t get his/her ST sensor to pair with the hub, and after moving the hub away it worked.
[quote=“GroovyGeek, post:26, topic:38941”]
ST customer support has already responded to my unflattering Amazon review with an offer to help
[/quote] I agree this is not the way you should get support to work on your case. It worked for me as well when I downgraded my Amazon review. I then got Jessica from support, and she fixed everything promptly. True, they spend lots of money on advertising and PR. You can’t go to any of the “tech review” websites without finding that ST is the system to go with and never hearing about scheduler issues, poltergeists, false alarms, etc. But that’s the business model they are running and that has been widely discussed elsewhere.
[quote=“GroovyGeek, post:29, topic:38941”]
Nevertheless the main feature that does not work for me is geolocation.
[/quote] And I would say, get away from it. It is not very accurate and you will only have headaches if you are prone to them after having something break. If you use iOS, you may want to try JDs response with an iBeacon. He relies on it, and he always says good things about it (unless you prove me wrong JD).
[quote=“JDRoberts, post:27, topic:38941”]
strength of the mesh is one of the main reasons why a sensor reports as open instead of closed or closed instead of open
[/quote] This is all about the mesh. More specifically, your Zigbee or Z-wave mesh network and your home size, hence sensor placements. I have a smart bulb that is about 10ft in a straight line from the hub. The problem is, there’s a wall, refrigerator and a door between the two. Two days I spent trying to get it to work, until I installed a Zigbee switch closer and magic, my smart bulb paired.
If you have a big home, then you will need a strong mesh network for either Zigbee or Z-wave or both. It’s just like WiFi. If you have your TV slowing or pausing during Netflix, get a better router or repeater and it goes away.
If you really want to give this a try, your best bet will be to make a weekend test. This is just a suggestion and I’m in no way saying that everyone should be doing this, and that it is the best practice. Go to Lowe’s, Home Depot, Best Buy or order online from Amazon, z-waveproducts, ST. Get a long Ethernet cable, one or two things that will work as a Zigbee repeater (ST outlet, Quirky Outlink, Iris Smart plug, OSRAM lightify bulbsetc) and play with it. Move the hub away from the WiFi source, install the Zigbee repeaters and give it a go. I am almost positive that this should improve your experience. If it doesn’t, you can always return everything.
[quote=“GroovyGeek, post:26, topic:38941”]
Frankly, I don’t have the time
[/quote] Now this is my most important advice regarding this subject. Maybe I should have started with this. If you don’t have time or don’t want to put it into this platform, return everything and continue to live with your life. Light switches have been proven to work for over a hundred years and there are other alarm systems that work as they advertise.
It is not that you will have to make daily changes, no. Most of the time I don’t even open the app and just use the automated routines, or the widgets on my Android. Everything else I leave it to motion and open/close sensors.
But there comes that time, every two or three weeks, or so, when ST cloud has a hiccup, and your things won’t run as they should. They are working on it and I’ve seen improvements, but it will eventually happen because this thing runs on the cloud.
Anyways, sorry for the long post but I hope it helps.